A career that's life-changing

Young Person's Practitioner - Edinburgh & Lothians

Salary up to £21,000 depending on experience

Hours: Full Time 37 hours

How Action for Children works

Action for Children does what's right, does what's needed and does what works for children across the UK. Every year, our team changes the lives of 301,000 children, young people and their families - but for every child who needs help to get help, there's plenty more to do. That's where you come in.

How we work:

Action for Children does what's right, does what's needed and does what works for children in the UK. Every year, our team changes the lives of 390,000 children, young people and families.

New Horizons provides residential housing support to young people; aged 16-25 years referred by East Lothian Housing Department as homeless or threatened with homelessness. The Service seeks to support young people to prepare for more independent living working with residents on a range of issues e.g. budgeting, food preparation and safe storage, household chores and practical skills, managing neighbourhood relations and disputes, accessing specialist services, employability.

The difference

You'll significantly improve young people's lives:

By engaging with young people providing structured and focused housing support to assist young people to gain the skills to live more independently or sustain their accommodation in the community. This support may be provided as a 1:1 or as small focused group work.

By building strong working relationships with multi-agency partners from the statutory and voluntary sectors to deliver the best outcomes for young people, including ELC Housing Department, benefits agencies, specialist health services, employment and training providers.

By supporting young people to engage with local agencies and organisations which assists them to sustain their accommodation and place within the community e.g. accessing leisure activities, GP and health services.

By ensuring that the Service complies with all Action for Children and East Lothian Council Standards and Procedures and with regard to case file recording / paperwork, incident and accident reporting, safeguarding and health and safety. Practitioners will use Action for Children e-systems to identify needs, interventions and the Outcome Star to measure and record outcomes.

By attending team meetings and participate in training and learning and team / inter-team development sessions associated with the post.

The person

You'll need

SVQ 3 or equivalent.
Relevant and recent practitioner experience working with young people within a residential or community based setting.
A working knowledge of safe guarding practice and social care standards.
Sound understanding of issues affecting young people.
Experiencing of working with creative approaches and methods to engage with hard to reach young people and families.
Proven assessment skills and experience of working towards outcome focused care / service plans.
Excellent communication skills - verbal and written
Willingness to work flexibly with young people which includes working to a rota system of day, evening and night shifts (and some lone working).

The rewards

Minimum 29 days' holiday (pro rata)

Flexible working, including maternity, paternity and adoption packages

Season ticket travel loans

Company pension scheme

Discounts at major high street retailers.

Plus, there's a lot more besides.

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference to vulnerable children's lives and to build a fulfilling and meaningful career with a leading UK children's charity.

Action for Children is committed to safer recruitment practices, designed to protect the welfare of the children and young people using our services.

If you meet all the criteria and would like to proceed with your application, you'll be redirected to an application form on our website which should only take around 5 minutes to complete. Please have your CV handy to upload. As this job involves working around children, there are some specific questions we need to ask you as part of your application process. Thanks for taking the time to apply and we wish you the best of luck!

Apply now

Guidant is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.