About the Position

Anglicare’s Children & Families have a long history of providing family and children support services, including family intervention, foster and kinship care, counselling, relationship support, and much more. Our Foster & Kinship Care Programs provide children and young people, who are not able to live with their own family, the opportunity to live in a safe nurturing family environment.

This essential service based in Roma is currently looking for Practitioners to join its team on a full-time permanent basis, focusing on providing direct therapeutic interventions with children and young people and supporting foster and kinship carers.

The Practitioner needs to have the ability to relate to children and young people of all ages and work with them in a micro-therapeutic manner to help build their resilience, understanding of their personal history and experiences through developmentally appropriate interventions. The Practitioner is responsible for assessing strengths and risks within care placements and ensuring Foster and Kinship Carers develop and sustain the knowledge, skills, and capability to provide safe and supportive care.

Along with key stakeholders, the Practitioner develops and implements targeted, time-limited therapeutic interventions with children and young people, and carers. Implementation occurs through developmentally and age-appropriate interventions with children aged 0-17 and their carers.

Additionally, the High Plus program delivers the following services:

• Educating and partnering with carers to build their capacity to manage and respond to behaviours and build relationships with children who have trauma experiences
• Supporting carers to identify the developmental levels of children and young people and how to meet their developmental milestones
• Working with stakeholders to ensure comprehensive support is put in place to help children maintain attendance at school
• Supporting children and young people to achieve emotional regulation
• Developing social skills in children and young people to increase their capacity to develop and maintain social connections in their environments
• Supporting the carer to build their care team for support of the placement through connections and relationships with Child Safety, Schools, Therapeutic services etc
• Supporting carers, children and young people through their transition experiences, particularly focused on family contact and placement changes
• Supporting young people in their transition out of care journey
• Formulating intervention plans that capture the placement need and the timely review of these to share with the care team

To enhance the effectiveness and stability of placements for children and young people, practitioners also have the capacity to coordinate additional supports through the use of brokerage or external support services.

About You

As an experienced Practitioner, your primary responsibilities in this role will be:

• Support and assist carers to develop the necessary skills and capabilities to be successful
• Demonstrated experience in assessing complex and extreme needs of children & developing and implementing individualised care plans, including in-home support with children, young people, and carers
• An understanding and knowledge of child protection (Children Protection Act)
• Completion of documentation on time and within required guidelines
• Knowledge of contemporary trauma-informed and evidence-based practices and your ability to apply this in you work with carers

**Overnight travel and stays will be required - this is mandatory for the role**

With highly developed communication skills, you will also have:

• The ability to apply effective and professional decision making, problem-solving skills in crisis situations
• Exceptional interpersonal and relationship building capabilities – excellent communication skills
• Previous experience in consultation and negotiation practices
• Proven ability to work within a small team, in a collaborative manner
• Highly professional attitude, personal presentation, and expectations

Qualifications and documentation required:

• Degree in Social Work, Psychology, Social or Behavioural Sciences or similar field
• A valid Blue Card (Working with Children)
• Current Licensed Care Service (LCS)
• A current Queensland Driver Licence
• A current COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate
• Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment would be desired.

Anglicare is committed to building an inclusive and diverse workforce and encourages applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, those from cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTIQ+ communities, people with disabilities and people with a lived experience of mental ill health issues. We promote a child-safe environment and are committed to providing on-going care and protection.

What We Offer

We support our staff with learning and development initiatives, an employee benefits program, band are recognised as a leading employer in the non-profit sector. You will also enjoy:

• Working with a friendly and dedicated team of professionals in a collaborative and supportive environment
• Significant and ongoing learning, to create genuine career growth and development plans
• Access to awesome retail discounts through our employee benefits program
• The ability to increase your take-home pay with salary packaging

What happens now?

Send us your current resume and a Cover Letter explaining your interest in being a Practitioner with Anglicare SQ (You must be able to travel overnight and be available for on-call). Once we receive your application, you will be sent a link to complete a short, 15-minute online assessment and shortlisting will take place soon after.

For further information please contact Helen McLeod 0427 678 078.