Acorn Activities Project Worker

Acorn Activities Project Worker (17733)

Contract type: Fixed term

End date: 31/01/2025

Hours: 25

Salary: £23,400.00 (Full Time Equivalent)

Closing Date: 2 January 2024

Interview Date: 09/01/2024 & 11/01/2024

Barnardo's provide a range of services to help and support families across the UK, working with organisations and professionals so that children get the best start in life. As a charity we support over 358,000 vulnerable children, young people, their families, and carers each year.

We believe that with the right help, children can change their lives and achieve their potential.

To support Hertfordshire's vision, Barnardo's are working in partnership with Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation who is a place-based funder to develop a service provision for families living in the Jackmans Area.

We are seeking a enthusiastic and skilled early years worker to cover maternity leave and to continue to develop and enhance the Acorn Activities journey and work in partnership with the other community services to improve opportunities for families with children under five years old. This role will be pivotal in supporting this vision and working alongside the Community Lead to develop and implement an activity plan to be delivered across the local area.

Barnardo's is committed to realising Hertfordshire's vision for Family Centre Services through a coordinated, yet agile service delivery model that responds to the needs of children and their parents, providing early and effective support which enables families to develop resilience and independence, and enables children and young people to achieve their full potential. This role will sit alongside the Family Support Service, and you will be an integrated member of the team.

In support of the Hertfordshire vision, our model of delivery will provide:

• A flexible workforce in the community, coordinated around a hub that works as part of an integrated multidisciplinary workforce.
• Focus on areas of high need, including closing the gap for vulnerable families at risk of poor outcomes.
• Enhancement of existing good practice to secure good outcomes for families in relation to school readiness and educational achievement, improved parenting, opportunities for adults, healthy lifestyles, and children's safety/wellbeing.
• Support for families before they reach crisis point, intervening early with timely and effective support.
• A commitment to actively engage and promote children, young people and family's voice and the opportunity to be heard. Working to ensure their participation is considered on how it can make a real difference to children and families. 
• Offer multi-agency support through partnership and with co-located services.

Our staff will embrace a preventative approach by building a relationship with families, through a culture of asking questions and using experience of prior support, to recognise the whole family circumstances. We will intervene as problems arise to prevent escalation, ensuring children, young people and families are supported in planning their own care and setting their own outcome measures.

Required skills, knowledge, and experience:

• Qualification mandatory for practice, NVQ Level 3 or equivalent in Childcare or a related field or a Level 2 and working a NVQ3.
• Awareness of factors impacting on and issues facing vulnerable children and young people and families (e.g. disadvantage, poverty, disability).
• Awareness of children's need to feel safe and is able to apply Barnardo's safeguarding and child protection procedures.
• Experience of work with children and young people in a relevant setting.
• A commitment to actively engage and promote children, young people family's voice and the opportunity for them to be heard.
• An ability to communicate at all levels and to work as part of a team.
• Able to accurately and clearly record case notes deploying the necessary standard of writing and IT skills.

Do you have the skills and experience for this role, and are you looking for a new challenge?

Core working hours are between 8am and 6pm with some evening and weekend work to suit the needs of the service. 

• If you have any questions relating to the role and would like to discuss the role further, then please contact us on 07753317539 and ask to speak to Sophie Gates. 

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification, Job Description and Additional Information document (if applicable). This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• 26 days annual leave plus bank holidays, increasing after 5 years service
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

At Barnardo's we believe in children – no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. Please read about our basis and values following the link below. You will be asked questions relating to them as part of the recruitment process for this role.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is reflected in our values and our practice, and we have invested in this area of our work to ensure that we can deliver on our commitments to be an inclusive employer. EDI is a key enabler of our purpose as a charity and we want to ensure that the diversity of our teams is reflective of the communities we serve and that we continue to learn and develop our work with a focus on inclusion. We particularly encourage applications from candidates from Black, Asian and  Minoritised Ethnic Communities, candidates who are LGBT+ and Disabled candidates. 

Our basis and values