Kinship Family Help Practitioner

Job description

Kinship carers provide safe, stable homes for children, close to their communities, friends and connected networks. These carers often step into the role unexpectedly and face a range of challenges as they adapt to looking after children.

Thats why we are excited to be introducing a Kinship Family Help Practitioner, a newly created role to further strengthen our local offer to Kinship Carers.

We are looking for a Kinship Family Help Practitioner to work alongside kinship families, helping them access the practical, emotional, and professional support they need to provide the best possible outcomes for the children in their care.

Supporting our Kinship Carers in York is one of our top priorities as it is about keeping families together and providing a sense of belonging for children.

It is an exciting time to join City of Yorks Fostering Service as we continue to embed the service restructure along with the way we assess families. We focus on driving a strong value base of good practice, effective communication, and high support in York. The Kinship strategy is a key focus this year, ensuring wherever possible children can remain in their own family network.

We are continuing our implementation of Signs of Safety led by Andrew and Pene Turnell; as well as bespoke training in Family Seeing with Kevin Campbell, with training planned throughout 2026. Successful candidates will receive continuous training, access to knowledge banks and will be part of the community delivering the Building Brighter Futures practice model forward.

Candidates will need to be highly motivated, committed to meeting the Fostering Regulations to deliver an outstanding quality Service for Kinship cares in York.

The candidate will have a manageable caseload and will require the following skills:

• to work independently and as part of a team
• be able to assess, supervise and support fostering households
• develop others practice and manage challenging situations
• work within timescales and with conflicting priorities.
• have excellent oral, listening, and written skills for clear, analytical, and coherent reports is a requirement of this post.

If you are about strengthening families, seeing children thrive and achieve the best long term outcomes; then we would love to hear from you!

As this role is public facing, applicants will need to demonstrate, at interview, their competency to converse and provide advice and guidance to members of the public, in spoken English to CEFR level C1: Can express themselves fluently and spontaneously, almost effortlessly. Only a conceptually difficult subject can hinder a natural, smooth flow of language.

Hybrid working arrangements are available for this role. Each role at CYC is different and your working arrangements will be determined based on the requirements of the role and in collaboration with you and your needs as part of the recruitment process. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team.

City of York Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment. We require the successful candidate to undertake an enhanced Criminal Record check via the Disclosure and Barring Service.

The Council is highly committed to investing in the talent and wellbeing of our staff and can offer a generous annual leave allowance, access to the Local Government Pension Scheme, comprehensive Health & Wellbeing initiatives and a reward package which recognises your contribution. We can offer flexible working practices, community engagement and volunteer activities and, as part of our commitment to you, promote continuous Learning & Development. In addition, we also offer a growing range of discounts, rewards and savings.

For further information or an informal discussion please contact either;

[email protected]

Closing date: Wednesday 23 September 2026 at midnight

Interview date: TBC