Family Support Worker

We are one of the leading charities working with children, young people and families in the East of England. We take early and preventative action to support families to be safe, healthy and resilient.

We are seeking a Family Support Worker to join the team at HMP Chelmsford in providing effective and efficient running of the Visitor Centre, Tea Bar, Play Area in the Prison Visits Hall, assisting on Family Days to ensure prisoners and their families have a valuable visiting experience, improving the quality of visits for children and families, and helping to maintain positive, healthy and resilient family relationships. Responsibilities of a Family Support Worker:

To monitor and maintain the Visitors Centre Reception and book in visitors for all visits to prisoners.To maintain the day-to-day running of the Visitors Centre.To provide support and information to the children and families of prisoners as appropriate and signpost to other agencies where needed.To assist in the provision of refreshments for visitors, where required.To run play services inside the prison visit hall and organise and maintain toys and activity packs for children in the prison visit halls.Where appropriate, lead, undertake and/or oversee assessments of need, identifying and agreeing outcomes for individual prisoners and their children and families.To keep records and ensure the maintenance of accurate recording systems related to Service/Project activities and/or service users, via our monitoring and evaluation policy. Skills of a Family Support Worker:

Experience of dealing with people over the telephone and in a face to face customer service-based role.Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to communicate effectively with a range of people.Excellent attention to detail for recording process, events and systems.Good understanding of Safeguarding.Competent ability to use MS Excel, MS Word and Outlook.A positive professional attitude with the ability to motivate others. Benefits of a Family Support Worker:

Cycle to Work allows you to order a new bike, equipment or both up to the value of £1,000, which you can pay back through your salary to make tax savings.27 days annual leave, part time employees receive a pro-rata allowance according to the number of hours they work per week.Ability to buy and sell up to 5 days annual leave within any leave year.Ormiston Families provides a death in service benefit, up to the age of 70, that includes and covers permanent, fixed-term and as & when contracted employees.Ormiston Families provides a Group Personal Pension Scheme with up to 9% of gross salary employer contribution for any employee where they match the level of contribution.Employee Discount Scheme.Employee Assistance Programme.We are a dog friendly employer, which means that from time to time we allow colleagues to bring their pets into our workplaces.

Working Pattern: We run the visit centre on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays and have a rota based shift pattern available as below:

Based on a rota working 4.75 hours average per week, working every other weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) 4.75 hours (11.30am-4.15pm), plus various ‘as and when’ weekday shifts when required.For all options, a degree of flexibility will be required at times to meet operational demand. Safeguarding and DBS requirements for your role: Ormiston Families is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults at risk and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. DBS checks or police vetting will be required for relevant posts. We are an equal opportunities employer; we value diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.