Kinship Family Worker (Surrey)

About Us

We are Kinship, the leading kinship care charity in England and Wales. We re here for kinship carers - friends or family who step up to raise a child when their parents aren t able to. Our mission is to ensure kinship families are recognised, valued, and supported. We provide advice, training, and community connections to help carers navigate the challenges of raising children in kinship care. Together, we campaign for change so that every kinship family gets the support they need.

About the role

Kinship Connected is an evidence-informed 6-month intervention for kinship carers. It is delivered in the home and in the community. As a Kinship Family Worker for Kinship Connected, you will deliver our flagship programme to families in Surrey. You will provide intensive one-to-one support to kinship carers to empower them to become resilient, well informed and equipped with a strong support network to help them care for the children in their care. You will help them to navigate their local ecosystems and support them to unlock community assets and support.

Alongside this, you will play a key role in the delivery of Kinship s Ready Programme in Surrey, ensuring kinship carers are supported to access and engage with workshops and wider kinship services that meet their needs. The Kinship Ready programme is designed to support prospective and new kinship carers understand their journey to becoming Special Guardians.

You will be committed to the work of Kinship, passionate about making a difference to the lives of vulnerable families, and you will have proven experience of working with families, particularly those in more disadvantaged circumstances.

You ll bring excellent relationship building, communication and organisational skills, as well as the ability to work on your own initiative and collaboratively with partners, both externally and internally.

Key responsibilities:

One-to-one support

You will provide intensive one-to-one support, directly to kinship carers for up to six-months working within the Kinship Connected delivery model. This may include, but is not limited to:

• 1:1 emotional support
• Advocacy support in meetings
• Supporting kinship carers to attend a peer support group
• Liaising with local organisations that can offer specialised support and training
• Liaising with schools or other organisations
• Supporting kinship carers with the behaviour of the child/ children in their care
• Signposting to other support services
• Grants support with grant application for essential items and holiday breaks
• Setting up and facilitating a monthly support group within your commissioned area
• Signposting carers to Kinship training opportunities or organising targeted training workshops within your LA

Ready Programme delivery and coordination

As part of your role, you will support the effective delivery of Kinship s Ready Workshops, working closely with the internal colleagues and the local authority. Responsibilities include:

• Booking kinship carers onto Ready workshops and supporting their engagement throughout the programme
• Registering carers via scheduled phone calls, ensuring they understand the programme and feel supported to attend
• Identifying and responding to any additional needs carers may have, including reasonable adjustments, access needs or emotional support, and signposting appropriately
• Referring carers to other Kinship services such as Kinship s Advice service, Peer to Peer and Training and Support
• Occasionally assisting with the delivery of Ready Programme workshops online
• Completing administrative tasks related to the programme, including registering attendance, maintaining accurate participant records and updating internal systems
• Collating feedback, monitoring outcomes and gathering other relevant data to support evaluation, reporting and continuous improvement of the Ready Programme

Knowledge, abilities, skills and experience:

Essential:

Experience

Experience of family work and undertaking needs assessments both in person and remotely

Experience of setting up and facilitating support groups on an in-person and remote basis.

Experience of working with statutory, voluntary and community networks and the ability to represent the organisation to external stakeholders.

Experience of dealing with safeguarding

Experience of using a Customer Relations Management system (CRM)

Knowledge, skills and understanding

• Knowledge and understanding of kinship care and the ability to learn quickly about the regulations and guidance relating to special guardians.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Proven track record of high-level administrative work and experience of working with a case management system to record interventions.
• Excellent organisational skills
• The ability to maintain confidentiality, in line with Kinship policies and GDPR
• IT skills and experience, particularly in Work, Excel, and CRM s such as Salesforce
• Ability to work on your own initiative and manage your diary
• The ability to manage a complex and varied workload to successfully meet project deadlines and KPI s.
• Right to work in the UK and a Full, clean driver s licence.

Desirable:

• Personal experience of kinship care
• Experience in writing copy, case studies and newsletter articles as well as shorter reports
• Experience of using Salesforce database or similar
• Knowledge and awareness of the National Kinship Care strategy for England 2024

Kinship offers 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays (pro-rata for part-time). We have an excellent wellbeing offer including the Employee Assistance Programme and clinical supervision. We will invest in your professional development with training and career development opportunities.

Kinship is committed to championing equality, diversity and inclusion. We believe our work is greatly enhanced by the varied backgrounds, experiences and views represented within our teams. We aim to create inclusive teams, celebrate differences and encourage everyone to join us and be their true self at work. We therefore encourage applications from anyone who fits our values, whatever their religion or belief, sex, gender identity, race, age, sexuality or disability and are actively seeking candidates that can bring real innovation and commitment to us.

Application questions:

1. Motivation and role understanding

Why do you want to work for Kinship as a Kinship Family Worker delivering the Kinship Connected programme, and how does this role align with your values and experience?
Please refer to your understanding of intensive one-to-one family support and the additional responsibility of supporting carers to engage with programmes.

2. One-to-one family work and assessment

Kinship Connected provides intensive one-to-one support to kinship carers over a period of up to six months.
Describe how you would build trust and effective working relationships with kinship carers, both in person and remotely. Please include:

• Your approach to completing a carer needs assessment and setting SMART goals
• An example of how you have adapted your approach to meet the needs of a family facing challenges or disadvantage

3. Group work, programme coordination and administration

This role includes supporting the delivery of group-based support (running peer-support groups), including coordinating carers participation in the Ready Programme and occasional involvement in workshops.
Please describe your experience of:

• Booking or registering individuals onto groups, workshops or programmes
• Supporting engagement before, during and after sessions for peer-support groups and workshops/training referrals
• Managing associated administration (e.g. attendance records, data entry, feedback collection)

If you do not have direct experience, please refer to similar work you have undertaken.

4. Safeguarding, boundaries and managing complexity

Kinship carers supported through this role may experience high levels of stress, trauma and complex family situations.
How do you:

• Identify, respond to and escalate safeguarding concerns in both one-to-one and group settings
• Maintain professional boundaries while offering empathetic support
• Manage a varied caseload, prioritise tasks and maintain accurate records when working with families experiencing complex or crisis situation