Community Support and Outreach Worker (Special Guardianship)

You'll offer support, advice, and guidance to Special Guardians, and contribute to their ongoing training. You'll manage a caseload, organise and facilitate support groups and training, produce reports, and act as an advocate in pursuit of the service users' best interests. You'll engage with children and carers in Special Guardianship arrangements to assess need holistically and work with them to develop sustainable solutions that improve their functioning and achieve better outcomes for their children. If you are enthusiastic and passionate in making a real difference in children's lives supporting them to remain in the care of their family network, then we would like to hear from you.

You'll have a nationally recognised qualification such NVQ level 4 or other higher-level qualification or equivalent experience, as well as a sound understanding of legislation relating to children, fostering and safeguarding. You understand the models of therapeutic parenting which will enable you to support Special Guardianship carers, and can demonstrate knowledge of child development to support objective, family led planning. You have a positive and people-focused attitude, a flexible approach to service delivery, excellent communication skills and can converse in English with ease.

Portsmouth City Council's Fostering Service works to give each child a stable and caring home when their parents are unable to look after them for some reason. As a service we take pride in our work by valuing others, focusing on what's important so that we make a real and positive difference. Portsmouth have recently received their "Good" Ofsted rating which reflects the excellent work we do with Children and Families in the city.

We really appreciate our employees and fully realise they are essential to our success and look to offer an inclusive, supportive working environment where employees can reach their potentials with a healthy work life balance, offering the following rewards:

• Generous annual leave (27 days per year rising to 31, pro rata for part time hours) with the potential to purchase additional leave.


• A fantastic pension which allows you the opportunity to pay in more for that greater return.


• Flexible working options including hybrid working with a minimum of two days office based per week pro rata, giving you the flexibility to work up to three days at home every week. Hybrid working is dependent on the role and service needs, and exact details will be discussed with you at interview.


• Access to a wide range of training and development opportunities including apprenticeships.


• Extensive wellbeing support through the Employee Assistance Programme


• Discount on travel, travel loans and the bike loan scheme


• Discounts on a wide range of goods and services - access a range of discounts and offers from thousands of restaurants, shops and more.