Youth Offending Service Case Manager

Knowsley Youth Offending Service are currently looking for a highly skilled full time Case Manager for a fixed period of 12 months.

The Team: Knowsley Youth Offending Service [YOS] is a skilled and exciting multi-agency team who wish to appoint a qualified and knowledgeable Case Manager.

Knowsley YOS offers you the chance to make real changes to children and families lives in a dynamic and creative way. This role offers you an opportunity to work in a specialist field whilst being part of a committed, creative and experienced team. We are a high-quality service that strives to support the complex needs of children, to create sustainable outcomes, and to help children go on to live crime free lives.

Within the team there are a wide range of professionals including specialist practitioners in health, mental health, education, substance misuse, police, probation, victim intervention and family intervention. This multi-disciplinary team allows Knowsley YOS to provide wrap around support for the children and families we work with.

The role: As a Case Manager you will be responsible for ensuring the safeguarding of children and families, completing assessments and reports. With the child and family, you will build strength-based plans and interventions to best support them to support their needs and make changes to their lives, in both community and custodial settings. You will also be responsible for managing risk of serious harm, re-offending and the safety and well-being of the child. You will need to be creative in the way that you work with families, engaging them to build on the positives whilst having a strong understanding of the impact of exploitation, trauma and adverse childhood experiences.

We work under Youth Justice Board Case Management Guidelines including performance measures, local & national standards and Inspectorate frameworks. We ensure we are flexible in meeting the needs of the children and families we work with, focusing on building positive professional working relationships to help facilitate and maintain change. The role will require you to balance Child First methodology with public protection and understand restorative practice and contextual safeguarding.

You will need to have knowledge of current children's and youth justice legislation. Applicants must also demonstrate experience of working with partner agencies to support vulnerable children and their families, preferably in a statutory setting, to achieve positive outcomes for children, families and victims.

A key aspect to the job is being confident in your communication skills and being able to understand your audience, whether that be in a Court setting or to children. You will be required to engage with children in a variety of ways from support to enforcement so the ability to develop positive trusting relationships is essential to affect change.

Career progression and support:

We support case managers in their professional development, affording opportunities to grow skill sets and progress on their career path. There are three experience levels to the case manager role. Progression through these is dependent on level of qualification, experience, and an ability to prove (via attendance at professional panels) skills and competencies in line with the Knowsley YOS Progression Policy or the Knowsley Council Social Work Progression Policy.

Staff have regular supervision with their line manager, frequent professional development sessions and access to group or specialist supervisions for those complex cases discussions and reflection., "I enjoy working for YOS because young people are at the heart of all the work we do. It is rewarding and I feel like I make a positive difference to the future of young people by helping them to understand their previous behaviours." Rachel - Youth Justice Officer

"Knowsley YOS is a highly skilled, welcoming and supportive service to work within. It provides an opportunity for social workers to widen their skillset, and gain experience in completing specialised assessments and interventions using trauma informed approaches". Jordan - Social Work Case Manager

"Knowsley YOS have created an great multi-agency environment to work in. As a seconded police officer and someone from an 'outside' agency I have felt part of the YOS team from day one." Tony - Police Officer

"Knowsley YOS have been a wonderful team to work with, as the staff are so friendly, motivated, and dedicated to improving the lives of our local children and community!" Bryony - Educational Psychologist

May 23 HMIP inspection of Knowsley YOS says:

"Staff and volunteers feel valued by managers and their peers, and we saw that the service promotes a culture of care and compassion both for its staff and for the children and families that it works with."

All applicants must fully evidence how they meet each essential criteria to progress to the interview stage. It is really important that you are aware that applicants will not be selected for interview if they do not meet all required criteria.

We promote applications from all sections of the community, regardless of background, belief, or identity, recognising the value that diversity brings to our organisation. We particularly welcome applications from individuals from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds and candidates with disabilities as we acknowledge their underrepresentation in our workforce.

We will consider requests for flexible working. For most roles, the following types of flexibility are usually possible: flexible hours, working from home, compressed hours, part-time.

• Professional qualification in Social Work (DipSW/BA/MA) or Probation Studies (Diploma) or equivalent degree level qualification in Psychology, Criminology, Youth Justice, Youth Work, Community Justice, Education, Health is essential.



• Youth Justice Effective Practice Certificate is desirable.



• If Social Work qualified, registration with Social Work England.