CAFCASS | Family Court Advisor| Childrens Services
Role Based across Coventry, Warwickshire & Wolverhampton
JOB SUMMARY:
To provide advanced social work-level services to children, families and courts by
assessing and analysing court applications for any child protection and serious welfare
issues affecting a child or young person. Also, to influence those with parental
responsibility to be more child-focused when needed, to advise the courts and Local
Authorities about safeguarding concerns and about how a child's life can be improved,
supporting judicial case management in the process.
To achieve this, you will need to keep the child at the centre of your work through high
quality direct work with children and their families as well as high quality analysis and
assessment. You will also need to be a skilled negotiator, working persuasively with
family members and professionals on behalf of children. You will need to keep the
child's timescale in the context of the child's journey through childhood and, where
applicable, the care system, at the centre of everything you do and you must be
prepared to advocate in the best interests of the child, ensuring their voice is not lost
in the court arena. You will be required to be a resilient, reflective and accountable
practitioner, possessing good IT and organisational skills, so that you can maintain a
high throughput of outstanding casework.
FCA RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES in line with Cafcass Service Standards.
(Responsibilities and Duties may vary depending upon specific role):
Safeguarding/Child Protection
To provide high quality early safeguarding and child protection advice, assessments
and analysis to the Court on the needs and best interests of children subject to or
involved in Family Proceedings
To ensure that the well-being and safety of the child is paramount throughout Cafcass'
involvement in the case.
To ensure that all incidents or risks of significant harm to the child are dealt with in
accordance with the relevant Local Safeguarding Children's Board (LSCB) procedures
and Cafcass policies and procedures
To directly work with, or on behalf of children & families to achieve safe and positive
outcomes for children, referring to other services where this will produce benefit.
Service Effectiveness Throughput and Productivity
To produce high quality work with a rapid throughput, combining increasing productivity
with quality of casework.
For all work produced to be rated good or outstanding in internal and external audits,
with exceptions tolerated where the learning gained from these exceptions can be
absorbed and applied to future work.
To be fully engaged with Cafcass policy that all cases must be allocated and to adopt
a proportionate approach to work, assessing the needs of the case. In response to
changing demands, the regulating mechanism will be the average time spent on cases;
which is lower when demands are higher and vice versa.
Caritas Recruitment is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.
