About Us

The Shepherd Centre (TSC) is a highly regarded not-for-profit, providing specialised programs for children with hearing loss and their families. Our programs meet the needs of children of all ages; from our world-leading early intervention program for babies and toddlers, through to our mentoring program ‘Hear for You’ for school-aged children and teenagers. We have been enabling children with hearing loss to develop their listening and spoken language, literacy and social skills for over 50 years, ensuring they can go on to achieve their full potential in life.

TSC currently supports over 700 families all over Australia, providing in-person support from 10 locations across NSW, ACT, Queensland and Tasmania and through telehealth for rural and regional areas. Our global platform HearHub, supports health professionals working with children with hearing loss all over the world.

We don’t just profess our values, we truly practice them through the work that each and every one of us performs each day. We act and communicate with Compassion and Integrity in everything we do. We strive to Empower everyone we meet – our children, families and stakeholders. We foster Innovation – committed to finding better ways of doing things, through evidence-based practice. And finally, we support our people to be Courageous and harness their Creativity to unlock potential, enable progress and create new opportunities.

About the role

We currently have opportunities available in our Sydney and Wollongong centres and are looking for motivated and experienced Child and Family Counsellors (CFCs) who are seeking a flexible and fulfilling role working with children and their families.

These opportunities are permanent, part-time and we would love to talk with any candidates looking for a great role with flexibility. Hours, days and locations will be negotiated with successful candidates.

At TSC, all of our Child & Family Counselling activities are focused around two core understandings:

• The value of strengthening TSC as a 'Family Centred Service'. To acknowledge parents as the experts on their child, and empower and engage them in collaborative partnerships, leading to better outcomes.
• The need to support the parent/child relationship. This relationship is key to how the team works with the family, to build Listening and Spoken Language skills, via our parental coaching model.

Our Counsellors address these two areas, either by providing direct clinical service to families, or by consulting with their colleagues within the broader interdisciplinary team. This amazing team consists of Listening and Spoken Language Therapists (Speech Pathologists), Paediatric Audiologists, Research & Assessment Specialists and Clinical Administrators. They also develop key relationships with external agencies within the hearing, disability and Early Intervention sectors.

The overall focus of the Child and Family Counselling Service is to:

• support families in the early stages of diagnosis of hearing loss and during their early intervention years.
• provide support and therapeutic interventions to families in a range of areas including: individual/family counselling; group work; grief and loss counselling; support with decision making regarding hearing devices; enhancing family resilience, parent advocacy and preparation for school.

Why join The Shepherd Centre?

At The Shepherd Centre, we are passionate about improving outcomes for the children accessing our programs. We have previously been named as an ‘Employer of Choice’ and McKinsey & Company assessed our performance as being in the top 5% of companies world-wide.

We support our people to have a great work-life balance and offer competitive benefits including:

• Competitive not-for-profit salary packaging – claim up to $15,899 of your salary tax free per year + meal entertainment expenses up to $2,650 per year
• 6 weeks annual leave (pro-rated for part-time)
• Flexible work hours, including options to work some days from home/remotely
• Option to work a 9-day fortnight (for full-time roles)
• Work alongside world-leading Clinicians in your field
• Excellent internal professional development opportunities
• A supportive and collaborative work environment
• A family friendly and professional company culture

Essential Criteria

• Tertiary qualifications in Counselling/Psychotherapy, Social Work, Psychology or equivalent degree
• Eligibility for registration with the Australian Association of Social Workers or the Australian Psychological Society or an equivalent professional organisation
• Minimum of two years' work experience in providing therapeutic counselling and casework services to parents, children and families
• Experience in development, implementation and facilitation of therapeutic and Psychoeducation groups
• Knowledge of early childhood development, family mental health issues and current child protection policy/practice
• Excellent verbal and written communication and interpersonal skills and ability to work within a multi-disciplinary team setting
• A knowledge of the NDIS process
• Experience working with families, both face-to-face and via telehealth
• Working with Vulnerable People check or willingness to obtain one
• NDIS Worker Check or willingness to obtain one
• Full working rights to work in Australia
• Fully vaccinated for COVID-19

Desirable Criteria

• Experience in Early Intervention service provision
• Knowledge or experience in family centred practice
• Knowledge of hearing loss in children and hearing services
• Experience in and knowledge of Infant and Family Mental Health