Barnardos jobs

Make a Real Difference in a Child's Life

At Barnardo's, we believe in children – no matter who they are or what they've been through. We work to build stronger families, safer childhoods, and positive futures.

Barnardo's is the largest Children's Charity in the country and we know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. That is why we recruit outstanding people who share our commitment to deliver excellent services to children and young people.

Does that sound like you?

Do you have significant experience of working as a therapist in a trauma informed and responsive way?

Do you have experience of working with children and young people who have complex emotional health and wellbeing needs?

The Mental Health & Trauma Services Platform – North Region delivers a range of services which support the emotional health needs of children, young people and families. We support children and young people through therapeutic work. All our services use a suite of evidenced based Outcome Tools to show individual progress of service users. The Child Outcome Rating Scale, Session Rating Scale and Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire form the basis of these tools. These sit within the Barnardo's CSSO framework of practice – see attached document. Training will be given on the CSSO Framework.

What you'll be doing as a therapist in our Foster Well service and locality:

• You will be part of a locality of services that work with children who are cared for in foster placements. The Foster Well service provides specialist therapeutic interventions for children and carers who are in Barnardo's placements and the other 2 services in the locality provide support for children and carers who are in local authority placements.
• You will be providing therapeutic interventions for children and young people who are cared for in foster placements.
• You will be providing pyscho-educative and therapeutic support for carers of children and young people in foster placements
• You will carry out assessments and training
• You will attend multi-agency meetings and represent Barnardo's externally
• You will maintain high quality recording of all case work and reports for reviews, panels, courts and Local authorities when required.
• You will be promoting safeguarding at every step and responding to child protection concerns.
• You will be travelling to deliver the interventions where the children, young people and carers are located throughout the North West region.

Successful candidates must:

• Hold a diploma level qualification in counselling, child and adolescent psychotherapy, art, play, drama or music therapy with a minimum of 3 years post qualifying experience of working as a therapist in a challenging emotional wellbeing and mental health service with high referral rates.
• Be accredited with an approved professional body ie. BACP or equivalent.
• Demonstrate experience of working collaboratively with social care professionals.
• Have relevant knowledge and/or experience of relevant fostering legislation and child protection procedures
• Have a knowledge of child and adolescent development and the role of the family in supporting children and young people's emotional well-being.
• Have comprehensive understanding of children's safeguarding.
• Have case management experience and a clear understanding of the requirement for professional and accurate case notes.
• It would be beneficial to have access to a car due to the regular travel required in this role.

Additional Information:

You must demonstrate in your application that you currently use the skills outlined above, and in the Job Description/Person Specifications, or have used them previously in employment, education, training, volunteering etc. This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

Need more information?

If you require any further information about these opportunities, please contact Elizabeth Phillips on 07759 118185 or via email - elizabeth.phillips@barnardos.org.uk

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

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

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