Family Link Worker Young People & Transitions

Salary: 27000

Hours: Up toFull Time 37.5 Hours
Location: Russell House Huddersfield
Responsible to: Family Support Team Leader
Responsible for: Family Support Volunteers (based upon family allocation)

Benefits: Entry into Peoples Pension death in service benefit (3 x salary) out of pocket expenses free on-site parking free access to confidential and extensive wellbeing support generous holiday entitlement (26 days plus bank holidays rising to 31 days after 5 years for a full time employee pro rata for part time) an extra days holiday for your birthday! free tea / coffee sight tests and flu jabs and excellent learning and development opportunities.

OVERVIEW OF ROLE

Families caring for children with life-shortening and highly complex health conditions tell us their lives can feel really challenging and chaotic. Accessing and navigating palliative care or help with symptom management dealing with multiple agencies and health professionals alongside practical issues around finances getting the right equipment or adapting the home can be exhausting stressful and scary.

Forget Me Not childrens hospice has been here for over 10 years providing CQC-rated outstanding support for children and families across West Yorkshire. But we want to do more to enable families to live well. We are developing new ways to assess and meet families needs to ensure every member of each family gets the support they need at the right time. And thats where you come in.

As part of our family support team youll help us to develop and embed this new way of working. Youll support a caseload of families providing information advice advocacy and handholding. And youll link families to and help them navigate tailored support both inhouse and by collaborating with local partners. Youll also work to build partnerships with external services including by tapping into community groups across our region to ensure support is culturally appropriate and accessible to all.

This role will focus primarily (although not exclusively) on supporting the older children young people and families on our caseload including supporting those transitioning to beyond our support.

Youll be experienced in working with families with complex needs and in complex circumstances providing support that is person-centred and strengths-based. You might currently be working in education health or social care but youll have an understanding of palliative care and have experience of multi-agency collaboration.

We welcome applications from all candidates particularly those who have experience of engaging with families from diverse cultural ethnic and faith backgrounds. We value a strong understanding of how cultural religious and spiritual beliefs may influence care communication and support needs. The ability to speak additional community languages relevant to our local population is highly desirable and would support our commitment to inclusive accessible family care.

Most of all youll be excited to be part of a new approach to supporting families that will make a positive difference to their lives. If that sounds like you then please apply now!

To find out more about working for Forget Me Not Childrens Hospice please see our recruitment pack

For an informal chat about the role please contact Stacey on

JOB DESCRIPTION

Role Summary

Our vision is to deliver pioneering care through pregnancy childhood and loss wherever families need us whatever the future holds. This role supports our vision by providing holistic family centred care to babies children and young people with life limiting and life-threatening conditions and their families within the family support team as well as working collaboratively with external providers within local communities.

We recognise that families across our local area come from a wide range of cultural spiritual and socio-economic backgrounds each with unique experiences and needs. The Family Link Worker plays a key role in ensuring that all families particularly those who have historically faced barriers to accessing care feel welcomed understood and supported. This includes actively promoting access and inclusion adapting approaches to reflect cultural and spiritual values and working in partnership with community groups and networks to reach underserved populations. Through this work the role will help ensure our care is equitable culturally competent and responsive to the rich diversity of the communities we serve.

Working as part of our family support team youll be a key point of contact for a caseload of families supporting them to navigate the complex systems of palliative care and bereavement; providing information advice advocacy and handholding with the aim of increased independence resilience and empowerment.

In this family link role your specific focus will be to help develop and embed a new way of working with families focusing on further developing our holistic outcome focused family assessment support and review pathways. Youll help to link families to personalised support and enablement through both our in-house services and by collaborating with local partner agencies and organisations.

Main Duties and Key Responsibilities

Family link responsibilities

Undertake holistic parent-centred family assessments ensuring that there is a clear understanding of the needs and goals of each family member with a coproduced outcome focused plan put into action.
Working alongside members of the care team midwife or other members of the family support team to coordinate the support offered to individual families.
Navigational support and signposting for parents/carers and other immediate family members to access support and services outside of Forget Me Not this may include information advice and support in respect of home and family life financial and employment matters education health and community inclusion.
Develop partnerships and collaborations with key external organisations to further develop and enhance our support to families.
Support signposting to partner organisations through building up knowledge and links in the local community.


Family support responsibilities

Help assess plan deliver and review holistic family centred care and support to a caseload of babies children and families in the community or in the hospice working with alongside other family support team and care coordinators.
Deliver practical and emotional support that is best practice evidence based and meets all statutory requirements.
Undertake specific family support tasks during pregnancy birth into childhood and during the initial period following a childs death aimed at supporting the needs and emotional wellbeing of families including parents and the wider family.
Provide initial immediate and practical help and signposting to families at times of need including changes in circumstances wellbeing and bereavement.
Support families in making an informed choice regarding options during palliative end of life care for their child and post bereavement.
Work seamlessly with clinical care and family support team members responding promptly to any identified needs or changes in the circumstances of the individuals or families supported.
Participate in the in-reach service alongside other team members including but not limited to initial hospice visits support appointments delivering presentations transportation of baby/child and family as appropriate including the transportation of family and deceased patients from hospital to the hospice family suite (snowflake) /home.
Facilitate memory making opportunities for the families with both colleagues and external professionals. This includes but is not exclusive to tribute funds grants and wishes and linking families in with the fundraising team when appropriate.
Undertake high quality system recording to support the family journey as well as service performance indicators and family case studies.
Complete and maintain core competencies associated within the role and to use this knowledge to safely undertake care delivery.
Share knowledge and skills with care team colleagues providing support and training where appropriate.
Be responsible for your own on-going practice development and life-long learning including actively participating in appraisal practice supervision reflective practice education and training.
Contribute to the development of current and new services and other initiatives.
Ensure that family feedback is sought outcomes for families tracked and reported through agreed channels.
Where appropriate manage a small budget.
Work with and support volunteers assisting in family support activities.
Support the organisation to meet CQC fundamental standards (for example in safeguarding infection prevention and control and health and safety).
To work within the guidelines of the Local Safeguarding Childrens Board (LSCB) procedures.

We expect all staff to undertake any other duties within the scope spirit and purpose of the job the title of the post and its grading as requested by your line manager or their higher level of authority on behalf of the charity.

For all of our roles we expect employees to abide by the expectations set out within the Together for Families Framework. Complying with Together for Families means that we will all act with integrity to ensure we are trusted the people we care for the people we work with and everyone who supports Forget Me Not.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Skills and experience

Essential:

Experience of working with families and children with complex needs in a professional setting such as early years education health or social care
Experience of managing a complex caseload where competing demands and constant interruptions to the work pattern require the workload to be prioritised
Understanding of the work of a childrens hospice and the need for specific care of children and young people
Understanding of the key aspects of family support including support for parent / carers grief loss and bereavement
Proven track record of engaging with families from diverse cultural ethnic and faith backgrounds with a strong understanding of how cultural religious and spiritual beliefs may influence care communication and support needs
Able to work in a palliative care environment inc bereavement suite support.
Knowledge of current legislation relating to babies children & young people including best practice in safeguarding children
Ability to work within community settings meeting professionals and leaders of community groups
Proven track record of reliability
Evidence of a good standard of written and effective oral communication skills
IT literate (e.g. word processing email recording systems)
Able to interpret and follow written instructions such as care plans
Enthusiastic and confident approach to work
Good teamwork and ability to support other team members
Understanding of evidence-based practice
Able to work independently and in partnership with members of the Multidisciplinary Care Team
Able to prioritise work and effectively manage time
Ability to set and maintain professional boundaries with staff children family and visitors
Positive attitude towards change
Able to work flexibly including occasional evening and weekend work
Able to act on own initiative in delivering care recognising when to seek supervision and advice from a more experienced member of the team.

Desirable:

Ability to speak additional community languages.
Experience of working in a palliative care service and providing community care services
Knowledge of the wide range of services available to children and families in the locality
Knowledge of trauma-informed care principles
Experience of training others
Experience of working with volunteers
Understanding and experience of managing safeguarding concerns including following safeguarding referral processes and liaising with social care professionals
Knowledge of different multi-agency assessments inc. housing mobility adaptations social care assessments and education assessments.
Experience of person-centred planning

Education / qualifications

Essential:

NVQ level 3 (health and social care) qualification or equivalent experience

Desirable:

Childcare and Learning Development (CCLD)/CHCHE/ BTEC/NVQ level 3 or equivalent
Counselling qualification / Counselling/bereavement course
Advanced communication training
Additional community language(s)
Degree in a relevant subject

As this role involves working out in the community you will need to have a full clean driving licence and access to a car for work purposes.

This role will some involve evening and weekend work to best support the needs of families.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Equality and Diversity

Please note that we are committed to equality and diversity and make the following pledge in relation to our recruitment practices;

We will actively encourage and support under-represented groups to join us as employees
If you would like to apply in an alternative way for this post please contact emailprotected
We will always interview you if you are an applicant with disability who meets the essential requirements of the job and will provide adjustments to the recruitment process if required.
We are committed to supporting part time and flexible working; we will consider part time working requests for all our roles

Please click here to view our full equality diversity and inclusion pledge

This role has been funded by The National Lottery Community Fund for the next three years (1st April 2025 31st March 2028) but is a permanent role. It is thanks to Lottery players that charities like Forget Me Not Childrens Hospice (Registered Charity No.) can benefit from funds that support our communities.