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Lavender Street Housing Office Brighton
This vacancy has closed
The Personal Advisors (PA) in the Leaving Care and Asylum team provide vital support and advice to our Care Leavers during their transition from living in care to full independence.
For an informal discussion, please contact:
Bob Uden – Team Manager – main Leaving Care Team at Robert.uden@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Kate Eccles - Team Manager at kate.j.eccles@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Interview dates: 11th and 12th December (TBC)
It’s an exciting time to be join one of these busy teams, who are made up of a highly committed group of staff - passionate about ensuring all Brighton and Hove care leavers are offered the best opportunities possible to:
- engage in education, training and employment opportunities
- acquire budgeting and independence skills
- maintain their accommodation and access secure housing
- live a healthy lifestyle and access health services
- make positive use of community and leisure services
- promote family and friendship links
- for our Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) cohort - to successfully adapt to life in the UK
Both teams work closely with other professionals, including education providers, health/mental health professionals, education and employment providers, and organisations such as the DWP and Job Centre Plus.
The 18+ Asylum team also routinely liaises with immigration solicitors, the Red Cross, Home Office and Immigration officials, and voluntary sector organisation such as the Refugee Council.
Following a departmental re-structure in 2015, Children’s Services have developed a systemic relationship-based model of practice, and we believe that putting this practice at the heart of everything we do enables us to provide consistent, high quality support to all our care leavers, enabling them to have the very best start in adult life and to live happy, healthy, safe and independent lives going forward.
Both Leaving Care teams work with young people up to the age of 25 if they want a post-21 service from us. A recent Peer Review highlighted that our ‘social workers and support staff at every level were impressive’ and they had ‘confidence in the management team’. But we can’t realise our ambition to become a centre of excellence and best practice without more dedicated, skilled and motivated workers.
We will give you the time and active support you need to make a real difference to young people’s lives and you will be encouraged to take part in practice research and to contribute to practice development within the service.
Our team model is based on providing emotional containment for social workers and personal advisors - have developed a supervision model which includes weekly group supervision, 1:1 supervision, and Reflective Practice Groups for practitioners and managers at every level.
We have recognised that we need to do further work to support families and communities who experience racism in the city and to support our Black and global majority staff group effectively. As a council we have made a commitment to becoming an anti-racist organisation and we have set up an Anti-Racist Project to make sure we achieve this within children's services. We have also appointed a Lead Practitioner for Anti-Racist Practice and we are one of the Local Authorities piloting the Workforce Race Equality Standards for social care in 2021.
Please let us know your preferred role(s) to help us in the shortlisting process. You have the option to apply for either Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children PA or main Leaving Care PA or both.
Please read our Apply for a job at the council (brighton-hove.gov.uk) pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.
As part of your application, you will need to complete your education and work history and upload a supporting statement. Your supporting statement is the most important part of your application as it will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our guidance here (Supporting statement guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.
Work Permits: We may be able to obtain a Work Permit for this post but this is subject to meeting the requirements of the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) Points-based Immigration System. Please see Gov.uk for more information on the Skilled Worker Visa.
Part office / part home – hybrid - We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining.
Working arrangements are subject to Government guidance at the time. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us (brighton-hove.gov.uk)
Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.
Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).
Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.
