Early Help Coordinator

Responsibilities

• To ensure at all times that children and their families are at the heart of service provision and development across the partnerships.
• To develop, facilitate and coordinate working relationships and partnerships with a range of front-line staff and managers across Lewisham's Children and Young People's Services.
• To coordinate multi agency support across services to meet the needs of vulnerable children, young people and families by providing information, advice and guidance to professionals.
• Use negotiating and influencing skills to identify and enable different agencies to undertake 'lead professional' responsibilities.
• To provide training, guidance and advice to individuals completing FARPs and to act as a quality assurance agent, as well as delivery of FARP training to a broad range of audiences.
• To undertake reviews of FARPs to ensure that progress is occurring to plan and timescales.
• Responsible for attending multi-agency meetings, where required, to advise /guide and consult on the FARP and to support in the identification of services that can contribute to the plan.
• Design and deliver training and support to practitioners to work as a multi-agency Team Around the Family (TAF).
• To create and review guidance around TAF for practitioner use.
• To be responsible for promoting the Family Information Service and encourage use to support children's needs.
• To be part based within the Front Door for Families, alongside CSC, to provide advice and support.
• To lead on providing 'Early Help' information to the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) to gather research from providers in Lewisham within the required timescales.
• To promote services and resources in the area and across the organisation to support children and families.
• To contribute to the development of any neighbourhood allocation panels or processes to ensure improved performance and outcomes for children and young people within the area.
• To contribute to the development of the i-Thrive framework for Early Help in Lewisham, and the effective delivery of support to families.
• To have a clear understanding of commissioned services and ensure that these are utilised appropriately to address the needs of families and identify gaps in provision that will inform the commissioning process and re-shape service delivery.
• To ensure that case management, monitoring and statistical information regarding work is in place and ensure that progress of families is tracked efficiently, supporting partners to keep records as appropriate.
• To analyse available data to provide impact and outcomes reports for children and identify any gaps in services to inform monitoring priority outcomes.
• Develop communication channels and good working relationships with early help professionals in external agencies.

Knowledge

• Good working knowledge of current legislation and policy regarding safeguarding for children and families, and the legislative and national policy and guidance context for early help for children and families
• A sound working knowledge of Safeguarding and Early Help procedures, CSC thresholds and the Supporting Families agenda
• Knowledge of the FARP and Team Around the Child/Family process
• Knowledge of the Data Protection Act 1998 and information sharing issues
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office, Outlook and case management systems

Skills

• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to negotiate effectively and influence practice development
• Skills in using knowledge of legislation to support and improve practice of others
• Ability to analyse and interpret data and present results
• Excellent Communication skills both written and verbal.
• Presentation/ training skills
• Excellent problem solving and decision making skills
• ICT skills including Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• Excellent time management skills and ability to work to deadlines, on own or with partners.

Experience

• A sound career history and experience of working with families and children requiring early help support
• Experience of working in a multi-agency environment developing and maintaining relationships across services and supporting them to work together to achieve coordinated responses to children's needs
• Experience of working independently and setting own priorities
• Experience of assessing & analysing information about the needs of children and families
• Experience of effectively promoting equality and diversity.
• Experience of working in a diverse community
• Experience of managing change within a multi-agency working environment, with frontline, middle management and/or senior management level
• Experience of delivering training

Education

A relevant professional qualification or NVQ Level 4 equivalent gained in setting associated with children or young people and families or Substantial professional experience of working with children, young people vulnerable adults and their families.

Must be able to

Work in different establishments around the borough as required.

Ability to work outside of normal hours e.g. early evening training.

Can travel to attend meetings in and out of the borough at short notice.