Advice Worker

You’ll sit in the Services and Digital Department in the Advice team. Our department comprises the Training, Peer Support, Programmes, Database and Digital & Content teams.

You’ll be joining a growing organisation where you’ll have brilliant opportunities for personal development and training to support you in your role.

About the advice service

Our advice service is often the front door for kinship carers and the first time they have spoken to someone about their situation. Kinship carers are strong people, and we aim to support them to build resilience and self-confidence in the decisions they’re making. This means making sure they have the right information and advice to inform their choices.

The advice service provides over 2,000 kinship carers a year with easy access to expert advice and support to empower them to:

• realise their rights
• access the support to which they are entitled
• take the next step forward in tackling their challenges
• navigate their way through a sometimes complex and confusing system

We’re developing our advice service and investing in our team to make sure that we can support more kinship carers effectively. You’ll be part of a supportive team who keep kinship carers at the heart of their service.

Our Advice Team support kinship carers in complex and challenging situations. It can be a tough role at times, and we’re developing a trauma informed approach to our advice work, which we’ll be embedding across the service.

Purpose of role

To deliver advice to individuals (kinship carers) on their rights, entitlements and responsibilities in relation to:

• Welfare benefits
• Accessing support and allowances from local authorities
• Kinship care arrangements and options
• SEND support for children and young people
• Safeguarding issues
• Accessing mental health and wellbeing support
• Housing

The role of Advice Worker is pivotal in supporting kinship carers to access the right information, services and entitlements.

In this role, you’ll provide generalist advice and information to kinship carers, and this will often involve talking to kinship carers in complex and crisis situations. It will be your job to calm a situation quickly and support people to communicate their needs so you can identify the priority issues and provide in-depth advice, support and signposting as appropriate.

You’ll gather the relevant information to enable you to respond fully to kinship carer enquiries and be providing advice and information so that the kinship carer can take action themselves. When appropriate, you’ll provide additional support or follow-up action to move the case on.

An important part of the role is providing advice in line with kinship carers’ preferred methods. Often, this will be by telephone, including taking live calls on our advice line, and by email. You will also need to respond to enquiries using video conferencing, text and other channels as we develop the service.

The type of person we’re looking for

You will have significant experience of providing advice to individuals on their rights.

You might not have worked directly with kinship carers, or have experience of advising on all the issues our service covers, but your advice skills will be transferable to this client group.

Alternatively, will have significant experience of providing support to kinship carers. You might not have experience as an advice worker, but your in-depth knowledge of kinship care will enable you to quickly develop your ability to provide advice on kinship carers’ rights and entitlements.

We will provide the training you need to undertake the role, as well as opportunities for development and progression.

You will need to be resilient and able to remain calm in difficult situations. You will have an eye for detail to identify the key issues requiring advice and the relevant legislation, guidance or practice. You will be firm, sensitive and professional in your approach and will be clear and assertive as you support kinship carers to get their needs met quickly and effectively.

You will understand how important it is that kinship carers feel confident in making their own decisions with the right information and advice so that they can build their own knowledge and confidence rather than dependency.

The team work remotely, but there is the option to work from our office in London.

Advice provision

• Respond to enquiries through a range of incoming channels. This includes
  taking calls on our advice line, as well as responding to enquiries submitted
  through our website, via internal referral or other channels.
• Assess vulnerability and risk to prioritise and respond to kinship carers’ issues in a timely manner.
• Provide high quality advice and information to kinship carers on their rights,
  entitlements and responsibilities in relation to: welfare benefits, local authority allowances, support from children’s services, kinship care arrangements and options, housing, sources of educational, parenting and legal support and other issues that may be required.
• Research individual cases and identify possible courses of action.
• Address all safeguarding concerns in line with policy.
• Make referrals and signpost to other services as necessary.
• Where appropriate, provide additional advice or support to enable the client to take action or undertake follow-up action on behalf of the client to move the case on.

Person-centred approach

• Facilitate access to our advice service for people with diverse needs, e.g. by using appropriate translation services or assistive technology.
• Adapt communication style to respond appropriately to differing needs.
• Provide advice in a format that is manageable and understandable for the
  individual kinship carer.
• Apply agreed Kinship models of practice as appropriate, e.g. taking a traumainformed approach.

Service quality, consistency and data management

• Respond to all enquiries in line with Kinship’s advice service framework,
  standards and performance targets.
• Maintain appropriate boundaries and effective control of enquiries to deliver targeted support whilst working within the limits of your own and the service’s competence.
• Ensure independence, impartiality and confidentiality when dealing with
  kinship carers.
• Accurately record all contact and enquiry information in Salesforce in line with service framework and data protection requirements.
• Ensure accurate data entry in Salesforce to support service performance,
  evaluation and learning.

Professional and service development

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of relevant legislation, policy and guidance.
• Support continuous development and improvement of the service through
  implementation of new systems and processes as required.
• Support a learning culture by contributing to thinking and discussions around how we can continuously improve the service to better meet kinship carers’ needs.
• Work closely with colleagues as required, both within the advice service
  team and across Kinship, to support the delivery of activities to enhance
  support offered to kinship carers.

Team culture

• Act in the best interest of Kinship and the families we support.
• Maintain and contribute to an up to date understanding of kinship care.
• Deliver effective administration with attention to detail, keeping to deadlines.
• Actively contribute to delivering and evidencing a high performing service.
• Take responsibility for your ongoing continued professional development.
• Work in line with the Kinship values.

Knowledge, abilities, skills and experience

Essential knowledge and experience

The successful candidate will have one of the following:

1. Minimum of 2 years recent experience of delivering advice work on social welfare issues (e.g. benefits, housing, education or social care) to members of the public,
   OR
2. Minimum of 2 years recent experience of providing support to kinship carers,
   OR
3. Experience equivalent to, or a combination of, a. or b. above.

In addition, they will have:

• Experience of working with socially excluded or marginalised people and
  their families.
• A demonstrable knowledge of relevant sources of advice and information.
• Detailed knowledge of the statutory systems that people with advice needs frequently encounter.
• Knowledge and evidence of good understanding of safeguarding issues and good practice.
• Proven understanding of the importance of confidentiality and a non-judgemental approach.
• Experience using Case Management Systems and/or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms.

Essential advice-giving skills and abilities

• Excellent interpersonal skills, and particularly, a sensitive and professional
  telephone manner.
• Excellent written communication skills in English.
• Proven ability to research complex information and communicate this in an
  easily understandable way.
• Evidence of good judgement, knowing when to seek support from manager or colleagues or signpost clients to other sources of advice.
• Proven understanding and practice of keeping accurate and appropriate case records.
• A commitment to fair access to justice for marginalised people.

Other essential skills and abilities

• Ability to work flexibly, collaboratively and effectively as part of a team.
• Ability to organise and prioritise a busy workload without close supervision.
• Confident in using digital tools, and an ability to learn new tools.
• A commitment to the vision, mission and values of Kinship.
• A demonstrable commitment to apply equality, diversity and inclusion principles in all areas of work.
• Willingness to travel across England on occasion, as required (such as for
  events), working flexibly in response to the need.
• Right to work in the UK.

Desirable, but not essential, criteria include:

• Citizens Advice Certificate in Generalist Advice Work or an NVQ Advice &
  Guidance qualification or equivalent.
• Experience of working in the voluntary sector.
• Personal experience of kinship care or thorough understanding of the
  experience of kinship care.