Family Focus Team

The Family Focus Team promote, encourage and facilitate family time between children in care, their birth families and others who have played an important part in their lives.

Regular and consistent family time arrangements are also important in facilitating reunification. family time between children and their families is important and will be promoted unless it is not consistent with their safety, best interests, or would jeopardise their chances of achieving a permanent placement (Permanence Policy, 2010).

Although family time is our core business, we can also offer a range of other support tailored to meet the needs of individual families / carers. The Family Focus Team designs support to help families navigate various challenges and improve their overall wellbeing. To include:

• Placement Support - supporting foster carers
• Out of hours checks
• Parenting assessments
• House cleaning/clearing
• Adult advocacy
• Hospital supervision
• Family support
• Creche
• Resourcing and delivering furniture

Where we are based

The Family Focus Team is a countywide service however it has two principal bases:

• College Yard Centre – Gloucester
• Deep St / soon to be Orchard House – Cheltenham

In addition to these bases our staff use locality offices close to their own residence. This helps to build relationships with the children’s social work teams and promotes partnership working and good communication.

All staff provide a service across the county and work remotely, and staff are allocated work dependent on their geographical location. 

All staff provide a range of services including, family support, supervised family time and parenting assessments.

Who we are

The team is led by a team manager.  The deputy team manager reports directly to team manager and assists in running the teams, including the supervising and supporting of staff. The team also currently has three senior workers, a team co-ordinator and at present 30 family support workers.

There is a wide range of skills and knowledge across the team.  Most staff are qualified to Level 3 in ‘Working with Children and Young people’ and are trained and accredited in courses such as Safeguarding, Attachment, Team Teach, Triple P, Parent Assess, Level 4 Advocacy.  All our staff have a good understanding of adverse childhood experiences and the impact of trauma on a child’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. 

Skills you'll need

Our specially trained and experienced team of family support workers work flexibly and are professional when delivering a tailor-made service to meet individual case requirements. They need to be able to write detailed recordings based on EBP (evidence-based practice). They can build positive working relationships to establish a rapport and therefore achieve positive outcomes.

Our work varies depending on the type of work needed and the staff member's qualification and skill set. Once children’s permanence plans are finalised in the family time setting, we often stay working with some families for many years –until the children reach 18yrs old. 

For family support, a service plan would be achieved with the family and reviewed on a 6-weekly basis. 

In all elements of our work, listening and observational skills are essential to ensure that the child’s lived experience is understood.  Communication skills are essential because our team works with several partner teams and agencies.

Emotional intelligence and self-awareness are important to support and work effectively with both foster carers and the children/young people they care for.  

Transparency is a key requirement of our work.  It is important that we do what we say we will.  This helps us build trusting relationships with children, foster carers and partner teams.

Problem solving skills, empathy, patience and being able to prioritise work is crucial.  As is knowledge of the Children Act (1989).

Why you should join us

Here's what our staff say:

"I have worked for children’s social care for the past 27 years and in that time have had various different support roles.  I have in fact worked for the Family Focus Team in the past, leaving for another role in 2015 and coming back 3 years ago to help develop the team further.  The Family Focus Team is a large countywide service, passionate about making sure families are supported to be the best they can be.  Our families face so many different struggles and challenges and life is not always easy, but our ethos of kindness, respect and support helps empower families and move them forward.

"Our team are incredibly close and supportive of each other.  Training and development are always encouraged and team cohesion extremely important.   Our quarterly team meetings are full of information sharing, trouble shooting, training and relationship building.  It is really important to the team to feel we are all working together and supporting each other from all sides.  The management team are dynamic, approachable and supportive.  Family Support Workers are given the opportunity to try different types of work within the team.  Whether it’s supervising family time, supporting a family in their home, helping to clear, clean and organise a family home or supporting a young person in their foster placement, we are all encouraged to use our skills and experience to help families and develop our practice.

"I enjoy my job and love the variety of working directly with children and families daily.  It’s so rewarding to work with families whether it’s helping them to spend quality time together or helping them find strategies to improve things.  Our involvement as a team is to have an impact in some way and affect positive change."
Ruth Baldwin, Senior Family Support Worker

That's not all...

Our work is varied and rewarding. We are a warm, friendly and welcoming bunch of down to earth people who happen to share the same passion for doing the very best that we can for our families to achieve the best outcomes.  We offer many staff incentives throughout the journey with our team and encourage continued professional development.

Get in touch

Our Head of Service would also welcome any contact:

✉ Email: Tammy.wheatley@gloucestershire.gov.uk

Or

✉ Email: CSWrecruitment@gloucestershire.gov.uk