Support Worker - Children in Care

Leicestershire County Council; Leicester; Hybrid; GBP 28,000 - 32,000; Full time

Job summary

A local authority in the UK is seeking a Support Worker to facilitate Family Time for young people in care, ensuring safety and support while interacting with parents. Candidates should have experience in safeguarding and working with young people and their families. This hybrid role requires effective communication skills, teamwork, and a valid driving license. The position offers a permanent contract with a salary range of £28,605 - £31,029, and encourages applicants from diverse backgrounds.

Qualifications

• Awareness and knowledge of safeguarding children.
• Skills in engaging and communicating with others.
• Experience in working with young people and families with additional needs.
• IT skills in using software such as Word and Outlook.
• Ability to work as part of a team and independently.
• Valid driving license required.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate meaningful time for young people with their parents and family.
• Ensure the safety of children during Family Time sessions.
• Support young people and their families with ID and documentation.
• Contribute to the creation of Care Plans.

Skills

Safeguarding children awareness

Communication skills

Experience with young people and families

IT skills (Word, Outlook)

Teamwork

Driving license

Job description

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: Grade 8 – £28,605 - £31,029 per annum (pro rata for part-time)

Working Hours: 18.5 hours per week (over 3 days, inclusive of Friday and Saturday)

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 28th December 2025

Interview Date(s): TBC

Are you looking for a rewarding career where you can make a difference? Do you have a passion for supporting others?

About the Role

Support Workers within the Children in Care Service facilitate young people in the care of the Local Authority to spend meaningful time with their parents and wider family. Family Time sessions can be facilitated within Family Centres across the County, or within the community making fun memories with one another. The role of the Support Worker within this setting is to ensure the safety of children and support in overcoming any issues which may arise during this time. Support Workers have effective relationships with other professionals within a child’s network e.g. Social Workers and Foster Carers, and contribute towards the creation of Care Plans for the child. The applicant would also be required to give advice and support to parents, to promote their family time to be of the best quality.

Support Workers also support young people and their families in other ways, such as ensuring they have all relevant ID and applying for documents such as passports when required.

Support Workers within the service demonstrate a clear understanding of our continuous improvement journey, including becoming a trauma-informed service and areas for development going forward.

An enhanced DBS check is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

About You

To apply for this post, you must:

• Have awareness and knowledge of safeguarding children.
• Hold skills in engaging and communicating with others, including those from different cultural backgrounds, clearly and accurately in both verbal and written formats. Your communication style must be based on a foundation of knowledge of child development and professionalism.
• Have experience in working with young people and their families, inclusive of young people with additional behavioural needs.
• To hold skills in IT and be confident in using software such as Word, and Outlook. You would need to be able to effectively plan and manage your own diary.
• To be able to work effectively as part of a small team, as well as work independently when required.
• Hold a valid driving license and be able to work later than usual office hours (8:30am-5pm) regularly.

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.

In addition, we expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual’s personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term‑time working, part‑time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Rebecca Inman – Senior Practitioner

Telephone: [phone]

To contact me by email please click here

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services, we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ Plus; communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.