Family Time Worker

Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership; Chesterton; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

Staffordshire County Council is seeking a Family Time Worker to join the Children & Families team, based at The Vision Centre, Chesterton. You will support children in local authority foster care by guiding birth identity understanding, supervising time with birth parents, and promoting positive family interactions.

The role requires flexibility for early mornings, evenings and weekends, with responsibility for transporting children around the county and maintaining accurate records.

Qualifications

• Experience of direct work with children, families and carers in statutory or voluntary agencies.
• Experience using IT including Microsoft packages.
• Understanding of policies, guidance and legislation governing children's social care.
• Willing to work evenings and occasional weekends.
• Must have unrestricted use of a car and a driving licence.
• Ability to communicate effectively with children, families and carers.
• Ability to build relationships and deliver interventions for children, families and carers.
• Ability to work in conflict situations.
• Understanding of child development and the impact of stress/trauma.
• NVQ3 in working with children and families or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate therapeutic family time between children and their parents or other family members.
• Coordinate arrangements for family time for children and their parents or other family members as directed by court.
• Transport children and young people to attend family time.
• Provide parenting support and guidance during family time.
• Support the completion of accurate documentation, reports, and records in relation to children, young people, and families.
• Be available outside of traditional working patterns including evenings and weekends to provide support to children, families, and carers when it is needed.

Skills

Direct work with children

IT skills (Microsoft)

Understanding of policy & legislation

Flexible to evenings/weekends

Car/Driving licence

Communication with children & families

Conflict resolution

Child development & trauma awareness

NVQ3 in children & families

Education

NVQ3 in working with children & families

Job description

The following content displays a map of the jobs location - Chesterton Vision Centre / Castle House

Working Hours:

18.5

Location:

Closing Date:

06/10/2026

Job Category:

Children's Services

Directorate:

Children and Families

Business Unit:

Children's Services

Job Introduction

Are you passionate about making a difference to children's lives who are placed in local authority foster care?

As a Family Time Worker, you’ll play a critical role in supporting children in understanding their birth identity and supervising their time with birth parents.

We’re looking for people to join us with the skills to encourage and help maintain positive relationships between children and parents. We work with very vulnerable children so we must ensure we maintain professional relationships whilst managing complex family needs and behaviours.

You’ll play a vital role in supporting families for them to spend quality time together. Our aim during family time is to promote a positive and meaningful time for children with their family. This could include offering support, guidance, and parenting advice or modelling positive interaction and behaviours. We also support children getting to and from school and family time in various locations. Our Family Time Workers are required to transport the children around the county and further afield.

This role will be based from The Vision Centre, Chesterton.

You will be required to be flexible with your working hours including early mornings, evenings and weekends.

Main Responsibilities

You will:

• Facilitate therapeutic family time between children and their parents or other family members.
• Coordinate arrangements for family time for children and their parents or other family members as directed by court.
• Transport children and young people to attend family time.
• Provide parenting support and guidance during family time.
• Support the completion of accurate documentation, reports, and records in relation to children, young people, and families.
• Be available outside of traditional working patterns including evenings and weekends to provide support to children, families, and carers when it is needed.

The Ideal Candidate

As well as a passion for helping and supporting children and their families, you’ll need to have:

• Experience of direct work with children, their families, and carers in a statutory or voluntary agency which provides services to vulnerable children and their families.
• Experience in the use of IT including Microsoft packages
• An understanding of the key pieces of policies, guidance, and legislation which govern children’s social care.
• Be flexible to work evenings and occasional weekends as needed.
• Have unrestricted use of a car and a driving licence.
• The ability to effectively communicate with children, their families, and carers.
• The ability to build relationships and deliver interventions to children, families, and carers.
• The ability to work effectively in conflict situations.
• An understanding of child development and the effect of stress and trauma on child development.
• A minimum NVQ 3 in working with children and families or equivalent experience of working with children and families.

The role is currently subject to a review of weekend working arrangements, including any paid enhancements

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

For information, please note that there is currently an ongoing review within Children and Families to realign individual teams and the wider team’s ways of working. As a result, this role may be affected by the review. For further information, please speak to the hiring manager.

Please note: The minimum criteria in the ideal candidate section detailed above will be used if you are applying under one of our Interview Guarantee Schemes detailed below.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.

We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities

As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as yourapplication meets the minimum criteria for the post.

As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.