Introduction:
About us:
Centacare North Queensland is a not-for-profit organisation that provides counselling, family support, mediation, family dispute resolution, disability services, education and courses, crisis housing and homelessness support, youth services, community engagement and NDIS services. Centacare services the North Queensland community from offices in Townsville, Ayr, Bowen, Mt Isa, Cloncurry, Longreach and Normanton.

Benefits you will enjoy

SCHADS L4 Salary + Location Allowance $x,xxx pa
Great NFP Salary Sacrifice options available to reduce your taxable salary by $15,900 p.a. with Eziway Salary Packaging
5 Weeks Annual Leave + 17.5% leave loading
Birthday Leave + Other Above Award Benefits
Extensive support and investment in your Professional Development

• Relocation assistance by negotiation

Description:
The Opportunity:
To work collaboratively with families engaged within the Child Protection system to support family well-being, resilience, and healthy family functioning through the delivery of individualised trauma informed therapeutic interventions.

Department Overview

Centacare NQ’s Client Services Department provides a suite of services across the North Queensland Region, including Disabilities services, counselling, family support, education, and therapeutic services. As part of the Client Services Department, the Family Intervention Service (FIS) provides an in home intensive support service for families engaged within the Child Protection system in the Normanton Region, and outreach areas. The service provides assessment, education, practical and family support to assist families’ in addressing child protection goals where the children are living in the home and risk factors have been identified, and where the children are living in out of home care and the family is working towards reunification.

About the position:
The Family Support Worker (FSW) provides practical family support and case management to families involved in the child protection system and to assist them to appropriately care for and protect their children.

Key Responsibilities

• Build rapport with families while maintaining professional boundaries.
• Complete assessment of family’s needs through engagement and consultation with the family and information obtained through outcome star, observations, family history, and child safety case plan. Develop an intervention plan based on assessment.
• Provide practical family support strategies and appropriate modelling of parenting and household skills to families to strengthen parenting capacity and to provide a positive family environment.
• Maintain regular contact with client (5-20 hours of contact and coordination support; minimum of twice weekly).
• Provide supervised contact between parents and their children as per intervention plan and complete a supervised contact agreement outlining details. Additionally, provide a supervised contact report following each contact in line with program procedures.
• Ensure consistent communication to Child Safety, maintaining reporting requirements as outlined in Information Provision to the Department of children, Youth Justice, and Multicultural Affairs.
• Regular review of intervention plan goals through completion of subsequent outcome stars and meetings with Child Safety as per procedure.
• Maintain clients’ files in accordance with program and agency procedures.
• Ensure working from a trauma informed and child development practice framework and utilizing evidenced based interventions.
• Complete regular safety assessments and discuss any safety concerns with line manager immediately as per policy.
• Participate and contribute to line management meetings, supervision, team meetings and staff days as required.

To ensure job flexibility the role may be required to perform any other duties as nominated by Centacare NQ consistent with the classification descriptors detailed in the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award 2010.

Download the Position Description below for more important details about the position.

Skills and Experiences:
To be successful in the role you will have:

• Possession of a relevant social services degree level qualification.
• Demonstrated ability to impart knowledge and skills using a range of theoretical frameworks in a creative and flexible way regarding household and child management in a non-judgmental manner.
• Highly developed communication skills both written and verbal for working with a broad-based network of service providers and culturally diverse clientele.
• Knowledge of and understanding of the issues that impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in contemporary society, including the ability to communicate effectively and sensitively with Indigenous people.
• An ability to understand and describe family functioning in a broad range of cultural and social contexts and knowledge of the impact of abuse and dysfunction with families.
• Demonstrated ability to undertake risk assessments relating to family functioning and risk within households.
• Demonstrated organisational, time management and administration skills.
• Current open driver licence.
• Current, and ability to retain, both a Working with Children Blue Card check and Disability Worker Screening/Clearance/Card. Desirable.

Desirable

• Relevant experience in Community Services and or within a Not-For-Profit or Faith Based context.
• Knowledge, skills and experience in one or more of the following – Group work, community education and training and Indigenous services.*

Applying
If you are interested in applying for a position, please provide a brief cover letter outlining your experience relevant to this role along with a copy of your Resume. Only applicants that are shortlisted will be contacted.

If you have not received any contact within 30 days of the commencement of this ad, unfortunately your application has been unsuccessful. We wish you all the very best in your future applications.

For any new recruitment ads, we encourage all applicants to go to our website “Work with Us” and setup your profile. W: https://www.centacarenq.org.au/

Enquiries relating to this position please contact during business hours 1300 672 273.

Centacare North Queensland is a Child Safe and Equal Opportunities Employer. People from diverse backgrounds including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with a disability, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Applicants must have appropriate work rights in Australia.