Family Support Coordinator

Job Title: Family Support Coordinator
Starting Salary: £30,559 progressing to £33,366 pa – pay award pending
Hours: 37.0
Location: Stevenage
Contract Type: Fixed Term /Secondment to 31st March 2026
Directorate: Childrens Services

Do you enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, offering support, guidance, and training to professionals?

About the team

The Supporting Families Practice Team sits within Supporting Families in Children’s Services and incorporates both Family and Practitioner Support across Hertfordshire. The team also encompasses Families First Panels where weekly multi-agency support panels are held to discuss families who need a coordinated approach to early help support, and agree which agencies are best placed to co-ordinate the early help support plan. When it is apparent that more information is required or where it is deemed that a slightly higher level of support is required to coordinate support for families, a Family Support Coordinator will be allocated to lead on this.

About the role

As a Family Support Co-ordinator, you will hold a case load of families and lead on coordinating support for these families by undertaking a Families First Assessment (FFA). You will need to work at pace to meet families in their homes, to understand their strengths and identify unmet needs for which the family require help and support to meet. You will be required to build rapport with families quickly, working with them in their own homes and have a good knowledge of local services. You will listen to the wishes and feelings of children and young people and liaise with early years settings, schools and other key services and agencies already involved with the family, as well as identify and engage services that are required, but not yet working with a family. The Family Support Coordinator will work closely with the Families First Coordinator within the team to identify and engage external agencies to take over the lead role for the FFA, or progress with support where needed until the case closes.

The Family Support Coordinator will be managed by the Senior Families First Coordinator and will work in close collaboration with their Senior, ensuring that Early Help support is identified and provided to families in a clear effective way to evidence impact and ensure positive outcomes for families across Hertfordshire.

This is fast-paced environment requiring you to be organised and able to move quickly between different priorities for different families while maintaining up to date records. The Family Support Coordinator will need to be confident in recognising and responding to risk, referring to Hertfordshire’s Continuum of Need to support your decision-making, and continuously focus on improving outcomes for families.

Training and development opportunities are plentiful, to support your direct work with families; potentially including facilitating group-based interventions.

This role will be covering the districts of Dacorum and St Albans.

About you

Below are the essential skills and experience we are looking for:

• A sound knowledge and understanding of Families First Assessments and Early Help support in Hertfordshire.
• You will need to be comfortable working with parents/carers, children and young people from diverse backgrounds and have a sound knowledge of safeguarding responsibilities and child development.
• Experience of interacting and working with families, children and young people and finding out what really matters to them.
• You will be outcome focused with excellent attention to detail using their experience in report writing to help identify needs and strengths which in turn will help to produce action plans from the supplied assessments.
• Experience in effective stakeholder engagement across a variety of services and agencies.
• Experience of managing professional conflict and difficult conversations using your negotiation skills for effective partnership working and the ability to problem solve.
• Self-motivated with the ability to manage conflicting priorities understanding the importance of the role’s others play in achieving a desired outcome.
• Excellent digital literacy including proficiency in Microsoft.
• You will need to have a full UK driving licence and access to a vehicle, as you will be expected to transport yourself between appointments and meetings.

The role does not require a social work qualification.

The below is desirable:

• Experience of using EHM to record and evidence support.

This is an opportunity for you to develop positive working relationships with a range of professionals and allow you to be an active part in supporting them to help change the lives of the families they work with for the better, ensuring positive sustainable change to local communities across Hertfordshire. If this appeals to you, we'd like to hear from you.

This job role is within the Health and Social Care Services, level HSC8 job profile. Please locate this via:

Job profiles - Health and social care

To hear more about this opportunity please contact

Serena Yearwood, Team Manager Tel: 01438 845678 serena.yearwood@herfordshire.gov.uk

Or

Helen Whyman, Senior Families First Co-ordinator Tel: 01438 844746 Helen.Whyman1@hertfordshire.gov.uk

Interview Date: 16th and 17th July

Benefits of working for us

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Secondment
This position is open to secondments. If you work for HCC or any other Local Authority and would like to be considered as a Secondment contract, please ensure you complete the Secondment Form as part of your application. If you do not, your application will be considered as a Fixed Term Contract only.

Additional information

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. We are not able to offer sponsorship at this time for this role.

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

Safeguarding
This role has been identified as requiring a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

Driving required
You’ll need to have the ability to drive and/or travel around Hertfordshire, either using your own mode of transport or a company car to travel to other locations.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.