Supporting Young People Leaving Care

In this busy role, no two days will be the same as you support Young People to live independently in the community.

As a Transition Worker for Break – Staying Connected Service, you’ll work with numerous agencies to help make a difference to the lives of young care leavers in the community. Working both within the Young Persons home and in a variety of other settings, you’ll develop personal, flexible and realistic support packages based on people’s individual circumstances.
 
Ultimately, this role is all about helping young people to realise their full potential, so you’ll develop strength-based plans, complete risk assessments and identify opportunities for them to get involved in their communities.

That means you’ll also build relationships with the Young People. Delivering support to all young people to make a positive transition into adulthood, improve young people’s chances to progress successfully through education to employment, helping them to acquire the skills to live independently, whilst supporting them to make positive, informed choices about their lives

The ideal candidate will be enthusiastic, creative and motivated with a professional, caring and calm approach. You will need to be able to demonstrate commitment, flexibility and imagination. You will also need to be creative in problem solving and be able to work well using your own initiative and within a team.

If you are interested in enriching the lives of the people we support, especially those who are living within the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area, please take a look at the Essential Job Information and apply.

We pride ourselves on being an inclusive and supportive employer and recognise that working with young people, although incredibly rewarding, is not without its challenges. Therefore, we want you to feel appreciated for the life changing work you are doing.

You will receive comprehensive training, company pension scheme, have excellent career progression opportunities, and be working in a warm and welcoming work environment – amongst many other things.

Essential Information:

Location: This position will involve regular travel across various locations within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The logistics of this will be fully discussed at interview however please do contact us prior to this for further information if needed.

Salary: The current salary scale for this post is £20,500 - £21,525 per annum, depending on qualifications.

(The maximum job rate potential is £22,550 which is performance related). 

At appointment: The actual salary will be £20,500.

Hours: 38 hours per week (we would also welcome job share arrangements)

Closing Date: 07/02/21

Interviews: The first interview which will be a Safe Care/ Warner style interview, which will be held on 16/02/21. If successful after the first interview, candidates will then be expected to attend a second formal interview has been scheduled to take place on 17/02/21. We anticipate that each interview should last around 60 minutes and we aim to leave a minimum of a 30 minute break in between each interview.

Please note, all invites to interview will be sent via email. Please regularly check your emails, including any spam folders, for further communication from us. Failure to attend an interview may result in your application being withdrawn

To comply with the Immigration Asylum & Nationality Act 2006 and additional amendments, and UK Border Agency (UKBA) requirements, all prospective employees will be asked to supply evidence of eligibility to work in the UK. We will ask to see and take a copy of an appropriate official document as set out in the UKBA guidelines. Do not send anything now, further information will be sent to you should you be invited to interview.

We are committed to equality of opportunity. Your current immigration status will not be taken into account when assessing your application against the selection criteria for the post. 

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.

Full details and application documents here

Transition Worker – Supporting Young People Leaving Care

In this busy role, no two days will be the same as you support Young People to live independently in the community.

As a Transition Worker for Break Charity – Staying Connected Service, you’ll work with numerous agencies to help make a difference to the lives of young care leavers in the community. Working both within the Young Persons home and in a variety of other settings, you’ll develop personal, flexible and realistic support packages based on people’s individual circumstances.

Ultimately, this role is all about helping young people to realise their full potential, so you’ll develop strength-based plans, complete risk assessments and identify opportunities for them to get involved in their communities.

That means you’ll also build relationships with the Young People. Delivering support to all young people to make a positive transition into adulthood, improve young people’s chances to progress successfully through education to employment, helping them to acquire the skills to live independently, whilst supporting them to make positive, informed choices about their lives

This position will be based in Norwich but will involve regular travel across various locations within Norfolk.

The ideal candidate will be enthusiastic, creative and motivated with a professional, caring and calm approach. You will need to be able to demonstrate commitment, flexibility and imagination. You will also need to be creative in problem solving and be able to work well using your own initiative and within a team.

If you are interested in enriching the lives of the people we support, especially those who are living within the Norfolk area, please take a look at the Essential Job Information and apply.

We pride ourselves on being an inclusive and supportive employer and recognise that working with young people, although incredibly rewarding, is not without its challenges. Therefore, we want you to feel appreciated for the life changing work you are doing.

You will receive comprehensive training, company pension scheme, have excellent career progression opportunities, and be working in a warm and welcoming work environment – amongst many other things.

Essential Information:

Salary: The current salary scale for this post is £20,500 - £21,525 per annum, depending on qualifications. (The maximum job rate potential is £22,550 which is performance related). 

At appointment: The actual salary will be £20,500.

Hours: 38 hours per week
 
Closing Date: 24th January 2021
 
Interview Dates: Interviews have been scheduled to take place on 1st and 2nd February 2021

Interviews:  The first interview which will be a Safe Care/Warner style interview, will be held virtually via Microsoft Teams.  If successful after the first interview, candidates will then be expected to attend a formal interview, also virtually via Microsoft Teams.  We anticipate that each interview should last around 60 minutes.

Please note, all invites to interview will be sent via email. Please regularly check your emails, including any spam folders, for further communication from us. Failure to attend an interview may result in your application being withdrawn.

To comply with the Immigration Asylum & Nationality Act 2006 and additional amendments, and UK Border Agency (UKBA) requirements, all prospective employees will be asked to supply evidence of eligibility to work in the UK. We will ask to see and take a copy of an appropriate official document as set out in the UKBA guidelines. Do not send anything now, further information will be sent to you should you be invited to interview.

We are committed to equality of opportunity. Your current immigration status will not be taken into account when assessing your application against the selection criteria for the post.  We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.

For more information on this job opportunity, please initially email or call the People Resources Team via the contact details found on our website.

 Full details and application documents here

We are seeking a highly credible Governance and Compliance Manager to be responsible for a portfolio that covers Trustee governance, regulatory compliance, legal agreements, policy development, data protection and risk management.

At Break, we put relationships at the heart of what we do so we need an engaging, enthusiastic person to join our ambitious and innovative team. We expect the appointed candidate to work collaboratively across all departments within the organisation to embed a culture of compliance.

About you
The successful candidate will have proven experience of working in a governance position, supporting stakeholders or senior managers and Trustee committees to ensure compliance with regulations. You will have a robust ability to test internal systems, manage significant amounts of data and have the confidence to operate at all levels throughout the charity.

You will have the ability to respect and adhere to existing Break policies, empathising with our aims, objects and values whilst acknowledging some of the challenges we may face. We are seeking an individual with a strong problem solving mind-set and a pragmatic approach to making improvements. 

If you feel you have the skills, experience, drive and enthusiasm to join this dynamic and successful charity we would like to hear from you as soon as possible.

In return, we will offer you a supportive work environment with a fantastic team, and a smarter working approach to nurture your career with us.

About us
Break has 47 Charity shops, with a wide geographical spread, which are a vital source of non-statutory funding, together with outstanding fundraising operations.

Break employs around 450 staff and 900 volunteers, the majority of the latter in its shops. The staff are located primarily in Norfolk, with the main administrative offices in Norwich.

Break is Investors in People Gold accredited and has featured in the Times Best Companies list on three occasions.

For over 50 years our work has positively changed young lives, that's why we need you. Join us at this pivotal time for the organisation, we can't wait to hear from you.

Interviews will take place virtually on Thursday 14th January 2021

Please contact Mike Hudson  mike.hudson@break-charity.org if you would like to discuss the post further.

Full details here

At the core of our work is relationship building and having the communications of the child or the young person understood. We need to understand what makes them tick and what they are trying to tell us.

Break's Therapeutic Services is made up of a team of social workers, therapists, therapeutic practitioners and emotional wellbeing practitioners, providing one-to-one support for children, young people, their caregivers and families. Working together, we provide a spectrum of emotional support to children who have experienced past trauma, abuse, neglect and are sometimes unable to live within their own families. 

Jo Shepherd, Break's Head of Community Services, gives an insight into the support we provide:
 
"We work from a relationship-based perspective; seeking to strengthen the key relationships that will support the longer term emotional well-being of our children and young people. The young people often present with challenging behaviours and struggle to engage with opportunities or education. We can work together for anything from 12 weeks to 3 or 4 years. The help and support we provide is very much about meeting the needs of the child or young person – not fitting the child into a ‘one size fits all’ service, and seeking to support their relationships with their main care givers.

Sessions are typically one hour per week, providing consistency and predictability. For younger children we will use a range of creative approaches- play, sensory work, using sand trays, art or ‘small world’ play to explore directly and indirectly what the child understands about relationships, their feelings and experiences. Some of our care leavers might prefer going for a walk, in order to feel safe and start building trust. Flexibility and creativity is a must.

It’s amazing how a child innately knows what they need to process – they describe how they do things, or what is going on in their own world by making up stories, reflecting on their experiences and what sense they make of it. These unconscious processes provide information to us so that we can work on in overcoming any past trauma and experiences.

One young chap in foster care we worked with had experienced unimaginable trauma throughout his early years. We worked with him over a period of a couple of years. He would create worlds and stories – no one fed it to him, but his imagination would go wild. Over time we would review the stories and ‘worlds’, reflecting with and talking to his parents. The work we did helped to strengthen the relationship at home with his foster carers and helped him to work through his experiences. 

For me it's a form of alchemy. Something magical happens.

We see behaviours as a communication. So often the desire of society is to stop a behaviour, but we very much are asking ‘what are they trying to communicate with that behaviour?’ - Are they scared?  Unsafe? Possibly on hyper alert a lot of the time, waiting for something bad to happen to them?

Many children are referred to us with the school communicating that the child can’t access school work or is disruptive. From school referrals to the most traumatized young people in our homes, it is the same story across the board regardless of the label. For us their behaviour is a communication: the young person is completely full of past, or current, experiences and they live in a constant fight or flight state as they never feel safe. 

Break's Therapeutic Services is about helping these young people to process and make sense of their experiences. Our work is informed by an understanding of the importance of early experiences on brain development, even from as early as 12-14 weeks of life, which can have a lasting impact on the individual.

We have to ask the question through our work – is it that the young person won’t or that they can’t.  This absolutely shifts the dynamic – what do they know and what is unconscious, played out as behaviours."

To read about how you can help support this service click here.

Source:
https://break-charity.org

November 2020 brought the evaluation of Break’s Staying Close, Staying Connected project for young people leaving care.

The independent evaluation of the project was carried out by Jo Dixon, Caroline Cresswell and Jade Ward from the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, below is the extract of the summary:

“The SCSC project supported young people to develop and build the skills to prepare them for independent living. Feedback from the young people and workers showed that young people’s life skills had improved after six months of entering the project. In addition there was evidence that young people showed increased happiness with life over time, had better stability in their accommodation (most had lived in their house-share for six months or more) and there was increased participation in activities, whether education, employment or getting involved with other activities in the project.”

Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York

How did the project come about?
The transition from adolescence into adulthood is a learning curve for all young people but is often much more challenging for those moving on from residential care. Without the financial and emotional safety net families often provide, research has shown that those leaving residential care tend to be poorly prepared for independent living and are particularly vulnerable to risk. They are at greater threat of housing instability and homelessness, lower engagement in education and employment, are more likely to be involved in criminal activity and experience mental health difficulties and loneliness.  In recognition of this, eight Staying Close pilots were developed under the Department of Education (DfE) Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme, with Break’s Staying Close, Staying Connected (SCSC) being one of the largest and based in two local authorities*.

SCSC
Launched in January 2018, SCSC supports residential care leavers aged 16 to 21 who were preparing to leave or had recently left residential care. The project provides the young people with individualised transition support with the aim to help develop the skills and support networks required for independent living. The support package shared houses with others from the project and provides a team of professionals to support them in all areas of their life.

Not only is the project aimed at supporting care experienced young people in their transition to adulthood and all the responsibility that brings, but also works to help them maintain relationships with their previous residential placement or someone of their choosing. Those in the programme are allocated a Transition worker who is instrumental in helping to support and build community and family links and connection to previous children’s home.

Break’s belief in treating young people as individuals and not implementing a ‘one size fits’ all goes to the heart of its approach with SCSC. This not only means the ability to adapt the level and frequency of support as required but the co-produced element to the project means that it could take on board feedback from the young adults and tweak the offerings as the project went along. With the aim of not only improving the service this also gives the young people some ownership in their decisions, choices and involvement in the project itself.

Evaluation report and its findings
A variety of methods were used to measure the impact on those participating in the study of the project. This included but was not limited to measuring their mental and physical wellbeing; happiness; improvement of life skills competence; employment and training status; risk taking behaviour and cost saving impact on the local authorities.

Some young people who had experienced post-care instability in between moving from residential care into their SCSC property, had since settled. Nationally, 41% of young people leaving care are homeless at some point in their first year. As described by one SCSC front line worker, “some young people have stayed within the SCSC project longer than they have been in any other placement” (staff survey).

After feedback from those in the project Break employed a dedicated employment, education and training officer who built links and sourced opportunities that made a difference, and young people talked highly of this support.

The findings showed that one of the areas that showed the greatest improvement was how happy young people felt about the future. One young person said of the project “they’ve changed me as a person for the better. All young people who have been through care deserve this
 
Voice of young people
When asked what advice they would give to other young people leaving care and thinking of entering the SCSC project “Don’t rush anything, don’t try and become independent all at once then try to move out in six months. Stay as long as you can, learn as much as you can.” Another young person responded:

“Listen to your transition worker. Every bit of help that you get, that’s going to help you a lot and it’s going to get you on your way a fair bit. I tell you it will get you on your feet. From when I started the Break SCSC team, I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t even cook pasta for God’s sake. Now me and [the transition worker] are cooking roast dinners and stuff like that.”

Although the evaluation did highlight some challenges the project faced along the way it found that overall the project was successfully set up with evidence showing improvements in all outcome areas. The report also praised the staff stating that the success of the project “was helped by the experience and expertise of Break and the SCSC project workers, who had a range of professional experience”. Alongside the improved outcomes for young people, the project delivered significant savings to the public purse. In the independent evaluation it was found that for each £1 spent, the project could prove £2 of savings.

Break has received funding to continue to run the SCSC project and have plans to further develop and widen the offering to be able to support a wider number and range of care-leavers.
 
*Break SCSC launched the project in a third local authority but as it joined the pilot scheme towards the end of the evaluation report it was not included in the findings.

Source:
https://break-charity.org

The Foster Care Co-operative (FCC), has taken part in ground-breaking research committed to removing barriers that could prevent disabled people from becoming foster carers. The National Lottery-funded research, Mutual Benefits: The Potential of Disabled People as Foster Carers, marked the first user-led disability research programme in the world.

Gail Granger, one of FCC’s Senior Social workers, lent her experience to the two-year landmark project which was in collaboration with the University of Worcester and Shaping Our Lives (a national network of disabled service users), which concluded that disabled people could contribute to the pool of foster carers, to care and provide homes for vulnerable children. 

Inaccessible buildings, information systems, support structures and medical assessments were highlighted as the key barriers for people with disabilities.  However, training sessions delivered to fostering agency staff as part of the research resulted in a change of attitude and approach – and it is hoped that other organisations within the fostering sector will follow suit.

Steve Field, Director of Child Care at The Foster Care Co-operative, said: “From the get-go, as a not-for-profit ‘co-operative’ fostering agency, we adopted an ethical and inclusive approach, from foster carer recruitment right through to staff recruitment. It is important to recognise skills and competences across a diverse population, including people from different ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, religions and, as this research has quite rightly pointed out, from people with disabilities. We are very proud of the contribution that Gail has made to this project, and we fully embrace and support any changes required to help encourage more people with disabilities towards fostering”.

According to The Fostering Network, one of the UK’s leading fostering charities, an additional 8,600 new foster carers are needed across the UK this year alone, to help make a difference to children’s lives.

Source:
https://www.fostercarecooperative.co.uk

Senior Transition Worker – Supporting Young People Leaving Care

In this busy role, no two days will be the same as you support Young People to live independently in the community.
 
As a Senior Transition Worker for Break Charity – Staying Connected Service you will work closely with the Deputy Manager, providing leadership and guidance to a team of support workers. Leading by example, you will perform a key role in supporting the team to embed a trauma-informed approach to practice. In addition to holding keywork responsibility for a number of young people you will be responsible for deputising for the deputy manager in their absence and will have ongoing responsibility for providing support and supervision sessions to an agreed number of support staff.

This position will involve regular travel across various locations within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough with flexible bases including temporarily working from home.

The ideal candidate will be enthusiastic, creative and motivated with a professional, caring and calm approach. You will have a thorough knowledge of social care practice, particularly in relation to care-experienced young people, staff support and development skills.
 
You will need to be able to demonstrate commitment, flexibility and imagination. You will also need to be creative in problem solving and be able to work well using your own initiative and within a team.

If you are interested in enriching the lives of the people we support, especially those who are living within the Cambridgeshire/Peterborough area, please take a look at the Essential Job Information and apply.
 
We pride ourselves on being an inclusive and supportive employer and recognise that working with young people, although incredibly rewarding, is not without its challenges. Therefore, we want you to feel appreciated for the life changing work you are doing.

You will receive comprehensive training, company pension scheme, have excellent career progression opportunities, and be working in a warm and welcoming work environment – amongst many other things.

Essential Information:

Salary: The current salary scale for this post is £22,808 - £25,374 per annum, depending on qualifications. (The maximum job rate potential is £25,910 which is performance related). 

Hours: 38 hours per week
 
Closing Date: Friday 6th November 2020

Interviews: The first interview which will be a Safe Care/ Warner style interview, will be held on Thursday 12th November. If successful after the first interview, candidates will then be expected to attend a second formal interview also scheduled to take place on Friday 13th November. We anticipate that each interview should last around 60 minutes.

To comply with the Immigration Asylum & Nationality Act 2006 and additional amendments, and UK Border Agency (UKBA) requirements, all prospective employees will be asked to supply evidence of eligibility to work in the UK. We will ask to see and take a copy of an appropriate official document as set out in the UKBA guidelines. Do not send anything now, further information will be sent to you should you be invited to interview.

We are committed to equality of opportunity. Your current immigration status will not be taken into account when assessing your application against the selection criteria for the post

For more information on this job opportunity, please initially email or call the HR Team via the contact details found on our website.

To comply with the Immigration Asylum & Nationality Act 2006 and additional amendments, and UK Border Agency (UKBA) requirements, all prospective employees will be asked to supply evidence of eligibility to work in the UK. We will ask to see and take a copy of an appropriate official document as set out in the UKBA guidelines. Do not send anything now, further information will be sent to you should you be invited to interview.

We are committed to equality of opportunity. Your current immigration status will not be taken into account when assessing your application against the selection criteria for the post. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.​

Full details and apply here

A mobile coffee van business, launched by Break in September 2020, is giving our young care leavers the chance to gain real work experience and new skills to improve their job chances.

Our new Coffee Break project supports young people who have either recently left or are about to leave the care system and live independently for the first time.  And it is helping our young people to learn new skills, boost their confidence and give them the best possible chances of securing jobs after leaving care.

Currently based in Norwich two days a week, the coffee van serves hot and cold drinks, sweet and savoury snacks, and is staffed and managed entirely by our young care leavers. All the young people involved are benefitting from some brilliant training and guidance from our project manager, Joe Walden, or ‘the coffee van man’ as we like to call him!

Today everyone at Break is celebrating our Hidden Heroes. The people who go that extra mile and make a huge difference in the work we do. There were so many to choose from so here are the two we'd love to share with you...

Mark Edwards
Mark Edwards began his career at Break eight and a half years ago. He is our Maintenance Coordinator but so much more…

Mark has always worked hard to be approachable and friendly towards all the young people in our care. He has such a gentle, kind manner that young people are often to be found working alongside him, sometimes fixing the hole in the wall that they created, and at other times, just chatting about life.

Mark has built a relationship with a young person in one of our children’s homes – they have a shared interest in mountain biking, in fast cars and more recently, geo-caching. Mark went on holiday with the children’s home recently (in his weekend off) and he made sure that when a young person was looking bored, he found an opportunity for an adventure.

Mark feels like one of the Break family and believes his role (over and above his job) is to befriend, support and help point young people in the right direction.

He said “it’s the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. I worked for 25 years on building sites and I now work at Break where it is so much more than a job. I see the other side now, the side I did not know existed. This job has changed my life”.

Mark is one of Break’s #hiddenheroes because he has changed the lives of so many young people by going the extra mile.

Shannon Evans
Shannon Evans works as a Senior Support Worker at Morley House, our bespoke children’s home for children with disabilities. Shannon was amazing throughout lockdown and emanated Break’s ‘can do’ values by creating education plans for all four young people at Morley.

It was difficult to help the young people to understand the concept of Covid and lockdown and Shannon worked hard to ensure that they could understand by creating “social stories” and sensory experiences to help them come to terms with the disruption to their normal routines.

Shannon made sure that each young person during lockdown had lots of exciting things to do each day. Each week there was a theme. One week it was “We’re going on a bear hunt” and Shannon planned activities that fitted the theme – a scavenger hunt in the woods, a session making edible mud and making magic mud recipes. The young people all engaged and all loved it.

Lockdown was tough, but the young people at Morley House learnt so much – from making lava lamps to rockets, from shaving foam activities to just having fun – thanks to Shannon (and the whole team) they got through it as a family.

Shannon is one of Break’s #hiddenheroes because she has changed the lives of so many young people by going the extra mile.​

Source:
https://break-charity.org

Please note, the role will require an element of travel to other Break locations across Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire
 
Break delivers a wide range of outstanding services providing exceptional outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and their families, and is looking to develop and diversify those services to increase our support and geographical spread while always striving for continuous improvement.

This is an excellent opportunity to join an expanding and vibrant voluntary organisation with services located in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and make a positive impact on young lives as a member of our Senior Leadership Team.

You will be passionate about changing young lives and experienced in managing teams and staff to ensure they are able to provide the best support for our beneficiaries. The Operations Manager (Children and Families) will be leading, managing and supporting the management teams of our diverse services, which include children’s homes, fostering, short break services for children with disabilities, family assessment services and our therapeutic provision. You will work across Break working to ensure that our services work collaboratively whilst ensuring regulatory compliance.

We aspire to excellence and employ experienced, resilient, skilful and creative senior managers to inspire our service delivery and provide support to our teams.

You will have a background in delivering services to children and young people either with a social work qualification or a relevant professional qualification. We welcome those experienced in delivering excellent residential child care.

If you would like to discuss the post please contact Rachel Cowdry on 01603 670100 or email on Rachel.cowdry@break-charity.org.

Closing Date: 23rd July 2020

Interview dates: 31st July for Safe Care/Warner Interviews /  3rd August for Formal Panel   

Full details here