Essex County Council is serious about social work, and our Children and Families Services are highly diverse. From Assessment and Intervention, Fostering and Adoption, to Emergency Duty Service and Family Centres, to name just a few, our teams are passionately committed.
We spoke with colleagues from our Essex family centres who work with children and their families, offering a wide range of services such as assessment, group work and bespoke packages of change work. This work is aimed at supporting parents to resolve concerns in relation to their children’s safety and wellbeing.
The assessment work is quite varied and can be challenging, including interventions, parenting capacity assessments for court, PAMS (parenting assessment manual software) assessments with parents who have learning needs, as well as the assessment of sibling relationships.
Their group work interventions offer support to women who are in a protective role for children; offer support for dads; work around domestic abuse, healthy relationships and trauma.
The team brings about positive change within families, help adults provide positive parenting and increase the resilience of children so that they can stay with their families where it’s safe to do so.
We are looking for motivated social workers, who are passionate about making a difference for children and their families, to join our team. If you’re thinking about a career at ECC, then please read on to find out what some of our colleagues have to say about working in our family centres.
Beth Nash, Social Worker, Mulberry Tree Family Centre:
“I have only been at the family centre for a short time, but I knew within the first few weeks that it was the best decision I could have made to join this team. I always have a variety of work that I am completing alongside families which means I’m always learning something new, developing my skills and improving my practice. The team are really supportive and are always available to help, whether it be with allocated work or just for a check-in.”
Tina Moore, Senior Practitioner, Clacton Family Centre:
“Working within North Family Centres brings new challenges every day, it’s very different to being in a frontline team, the work is well managed, although there are often tight timescales to get things done! We get to co-work with others, including our fieldwork colleagues and other agencies such as Family Solutions. We also have the opportunity to specialise in chosen areas (mine are assessing parents with learning needs and working with people who have been involved in sexual offending.)
I love working within a really experienced team who offer fantastic support to each other, I actually enjoy going to work and have a sense of pride in all the work we do.”
Jess Tye, Senior Practitioner, Clacton Family Centre:
“Where do I start, since coming to the Family Centre I have felt a huge sense of appreciation and encouragement to develop my skills and practice. My ideas have always been heard and I have been given ample opportunities to complete training relevant to my role and interests. It is a great opportunity to be creative in a role that provides bespoke parenting, direct work with children and families, group work and specialist assessments. I love that we have positive relationships within the team which makes it feel like a happy place to come each day.
The flexibility of the role has allowed me to find a good work life balance, particularly with having young children. The team takes pride in building positive working relationships with children and their families and we are continuously looking at new ideas and approaches to offer the best services possible.“
Visit our Children and Family Services page here to find out more about our work and search all our latest vacancies.
If you don’t see a role that matches what you’re looking for right now, please join our talent pool. Tell us about the types of roles that you are interested in and we’ll notify you if they become available.
We look forward to receiving your application!
