Voice and Influence Worker

Hull City Council; Hull and East Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 31,000 - 33,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

LGPS pension

23 days annual leave + public holidays

Career development opportunities

Supportive culture

Job summary

Hull City Council is recruiting an experienced Voice Influence Participation Youth Worker to engage with children and families affected by SEND and to promote youth participation in shaping local services.

The role requires evening/weekend work and a DBS disclosure as part of safeguarding responsibilities. You will work within the Voice Influence Team to ensure children’s voices are central to education and related services.

Qualifications

• Experience of engaging with children with SEND and their families.
• Familiar with Lundy Participatory Model for child and youth participation.
• Ability to plan, manage and deliver participation opportunities.
• Strong ability to build partnerships with teams across the City Council and voluntary sector.
• Commitment to safeguarding and inclusive practice.

Responsibilities

• Promote and safeguard the welfare of children and young people.
• Plan and deliver ways to embed shared values in voice and influence strategy and ensure young people’s views inform service design.
• Audit participation opportunities and share information across platforms to reach diverse groups.
• Initiate and support partnerships and events with other teams to enable youth participation in decision making.
• Record participation outcomes and monitor the impact of engagement activities.
• Lead and develop volunteers and staff to deliver participation activities.
• Promote equality of opportunity by engaging with vulnerable and marginalised groups.

Job description

As a child friendly city, we believe children's voice and meaningful participation is at the centre of everything we do. We have an exciting opportunity within the Voice Influence Team for an individual with experience of engaging with children with SEND and their families. The UK Governments Special Educational Needs and Disabilities reform focuses heavily on child and youth voice, and this exciting role will help to ensure children and their families participate in influencing the vision of an inclusive education for all locally here in Hull. You will be familiar with the Lundy Participatory Model and use this to undertake meaningful engagement with children with SEND and their families and lead on this as part of the wider voice and influence team to ensure the experiences of children and young people remain central to what we do. Please note the job requires some evening and weekend working to reflect the needs of children, young people and their families. If the postholder requires a Standard or Enhanced DBS disclosure the candidate is required to declare full details of everything on their criminal record unless the conviction/s and/or caution/s are considered "protected" in line with filtering rules for DBS checks.

ROLE AND PURPOSE

To work with the voice and influence team in promoting and developing opportunities that enable young people to lead change and make key decisions that impact on the activities, services and organisations they access.

Undertake consultation and engagement work with groups of vulnerable or marginalised young people to ensure their views and needs are heard and understood and to enable them to participate. This will inform service and policy development to ensure their needs are met. This will include young people who are: looked after, leaving care, SEND, experiencing poor emotional health, those who are home educated, at risk of exploitation, from BME communities (including asylum seekers and refugees), those at risk of involvement in the criminal justice systems, those educated in pupil referral units or at risk of exclusion from school, LGBT and questioning young people, those who have experienced domestic abuse and children in need.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. To promote and safeguard the welfare of children, young people and/or vulnerable adults.
2. To plan, project manage and deliver ways to embed the shared values in the voice and influence strategy and Article 12 UNCRC, to ensure young people's views are heard and acted upon in the design and delivery of services, activities, and opportunities.
3. Responsible for completing and keeping up to date an audit of participation opportunities available to young people that facilitate young people's participation in voice and influence activities. Be responsible for sharing the opportunities across a range of platforms to reach young people across the city, especially young people who face barriers to participation.
4. Initiate, facilitate and support the development of partnerships, project and events alongside other teams across the City council and VCS to ensure the effective delivery of voice and influence opportunities, including HYPP, Young Mayor, SEND, HAF, YVIC and other emerging opportunities, to enable young people to participate in decision making, campaigns and influencing service design and delivery.
5. Contribute to the ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of Voice and Influence work by contributing to the development and maintenance of a suite of relevant "performance information" (including data, quality indicators, outcomes etc.) Keep comprehensive records of young people's participation, and skill development in the participation process, including recording the outcomes of sessions, activities and the difference young people have made.
6. Build relationships, deliver training, advice, and guidance, and support a range of stakeholders to develop sustainable and meaningful engagement and participation activities, and structures for children and young people across organisations to ensure that young people's involvement is meaningful, and that staff and young people are informed and prepared to participate in the process.
7. Recruit, train and support young people to volunteer to assist in the design, development, delivery and evaluation of participation and voice and influence work, including working with young people develop, deliver and evaluate participation training and information for young people and staff, to enable young people to particate, and for staff to understand how to ensure effective and participation.
8. To promote equality of opportunity by engaging with vulnerable and marginalised children and young people and those from minority or socially excluded groups. To undertake an annual audit of consultation, and participation to identify underrepresented groups and reduce barriers to their engagement.
9. Manage and develop Participation Youth Support Worker to deliver the principal accountabilities of the posts whilst complying with Hull CC policies and procedures. This includes day to day line management, supervision, and managing sickness and absence.
10. Undertake administrative tasks as required including record keeping, writing and submit reports to a range of audiences (e.g. partnerships, subgroups etc.).
11. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation places responsibilities for health and safety on Hull City Council, as your employer and you as an employee of the council. In addition to the Councils overall duties, the post holder has personal responsibility for their own health, safety and wellbeing and that of other employees; additional and more specific responsibilities are identified in the Council's Corporate HS policy.

NC4736.Voice Influence Participation Youth Worker.docx

£30,515.00 - £33,119.00

Job Classifications:

• 3- Not Politically Restricted - Designated As Not Politically Sensitive (Politically Restricted Posts)
• 5- Enhanced Childrens Barring List - (Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS))
• Casual - (Travel Allowance Policy)
• No - (Childcare Disqualification Requirement)
• No - (Statutory Post)

Benefits of Working of Hull City Council:

• A competitive salary
• An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• Initially 23 days annual leave depending on length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year, and three additional days off, one in May/August and one during the Christmas/New year period
• Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods
• Supportive and forward-thinking culture
• Great career development opportunities