Laura Hardy

The Family Support Worker role is a part-time position, (2 days per week), term time only. Main responsibilities include:-

- Help address the needs of children in setting and their families.

- A key element to this role is working collaboratively and supportively with various members of the school community - children, parents / cares, school staff and other agencies.

- I am also one of the Designated Safeguarding Leads in setting and have an understanding of child protection and safeguarding children's welfare, both at home and in school.

- I am a supportive link in school - helping to promote effective relationships between home and school life for children and parents.

- As part of the role, I provide support as part of early help. This includes completing early help assessments and managing Team Around the Family meetings, developing and reviewing support plans for children and families. I am also involved in assisting families with completing of paperwork / referrals for children needing neurological assessments.

- Working directly with children to gain the 'voice of the child' and supporting with their emotions.

Having left my last position as senior social worker in the adoption service, I became an independent social work representative on the Peterborough and Cambridgeshire Adoption Panel.

As part of this role, I am involved in giving advice and contributing to decisions regarding the approval of prospective adopters and matches between prospective adopters and children.

On 01.12.20, I TUPED from Peterborough City Council Permanence Service to Cambridgeshire County Council as part of the regionalisation of the adoption services. On this date, I moved into the Recruitment and Assessment Service.

My roles and responsibilities within this service included:-

• Undertaking assessments of prospective adopters and stepparent adopters.
• Providing support to prospective adopters before and after approval. This included support to children who had been placed for adoption through to adoption order being made as well as post adoption support to adoptive children and their families.
• Facilitation of training courses for prospective adopters and presentations of adoption information meetings.
• Working as part of a team and other professionals, both within the agency and external agencies too.
• Being on duty and responding to enquiries.

From June 2003 - December 2010, I worked as a social worker in Peterborough City Council's Children in Need Team, later known as the Assessment and Care Planning Service.

My roles and responsibilities included:-

• Child protection - working with families where children were subject to child in need and child protection plans. This involved assessing and managing risks to children at home and co-ordinating services as part of monitoring and support packages.
• Care proceedings:- This involved attending court, providing evidence (written statements and verbal information), formulating permanency care plans and working experts involved in court assessments.
• Children subject to court orders / placed in local authority care. This involved statutory visits to children in foster placements, residential assessment units and participating in statutory childcare review meetings.
• Adoption work. This involved completion of child permanence reports, matching reports, presentations to adoption adoption panels, participation in life story work and post adoption contact plans. I was also involved in family finding and supporting children during transitions from foster placements to adoptive families through to adoption orders being made. Part of this work involved providing post adoption support to adoptive children and their families, including those where placements were in crisis.

In January 2011, I transferred to the agency's adoption service, later known as Permanence Service and remained there until 01.12.20 when the service regionalised with Cambridgeshire County Council's adoption service.

During this time, my roles and responsibilities included:-

• Involvement in all aspects of recruitment, assessment and support of prospective adopters.
• Undertaking assessments of prospective adopters, stepparent adopters and viability assessments of alternative carers such as special guardians.
• Providing support to prospective adopters before and after approval, including support to children who had been placed for adoption.
• Family finding for children in need of adoptive families including formulating post placement adoption support plans, profiling of children and attending adoption activity events with children.
• Providing counselling to adopted adults regarding access to their records.
• Facilitation of training courses for prospective adopters and presentations of adoption information evenings.
• Completion of adoption support assessments and providing post adoption support to adoptive families and children.
• Working as part of a team and other professionals, both within the agencies and externally.
• Providing support to special guardians who have children placed in their care.
• On occasion, mentoring / joint working with student social workers.
• Being on duty and responding to enquiries.
• Supervising a foster family and undertaking foster carer annual reviews.

This was a weekend job whilst studying at university. I worked on Deli counter which involved serving food and providing a service to members of the public.

I left this position once I qualified as a social worker and began full time employment in my chosen profession.

This was a temporary period of employment whilst on my social work placement at Family Action.

Roles and responsibilities included:-

• Assisting staff with the running of family groups and activities held at the family centre.
• Interacting and supporting parents and children who attended the family centres activities.
• Working in the after-school club for children with additional needs once weekly.

During this period of employment, I worked in the baby, toddler and pre-school rooms with children between 0-4 years old.

This involved providing care for children and contributing to their wellbeing, development and learning.

This enabled me to develop knowledge and understanding of children of differing ages and needs.

During this time, I worked as a family volunteer at weekends.

• Provided support to 3 separate families.
• Support consisted of practical help and emotional support to parents, play and interaction with children.
• Also support with helping families to access activities in their local community. This involved accessing activities in the community and helping in the home.
• I undertook voluntary work to gain experience with families in the community in preparation for studying social work at university.

During this period of employment, I contributed to the care and learning of babies, toddler and pre-school age children and supporting nursery staff.

I undertook this work whilst studying at college to gain experience with children.

I then left this role once I qualified as a nursery practitioner but remained at the same setting in a more senior position.