Location: Wolverhampton (WV9)

37.5 hours per week

Salary of £37,500 – £40,000 depending on experience and qualifications

1 Year Fixed Term Contract until 31^st March 2025

About Us

Our vision is for every child and young person to be safe, loved and happy, to achieve their potential and have a bright future.

St Christopher's is a leading charity for children and young people. We are proud of our history of providing fostering, children's homes and innovative leaving care services across the UK & Isle of Man.  We have a passionate commitment to our young people, placing them at the centre of everything we do.  We provide positive life experiences for young people who are unable to sustain a placement in their parental or foster home.

We are an equal-opportunity employer keen to develop an inclusive workforce where people feel they belong.  We hope to attract applications from under- represented groups, including people from different cultures, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, disabilities, religions, faith, sex, orientation, childcare responsibilities, and gender-diverse identities.

St Christopher’s Academy

When you join St Christopher’s, we will set you up in your career with a tailored development plan. Whether you want to move across to a different service, become a Manager or just explore further your current role, we will support you to map out your career trajectory and help you achieve your professional ambitions. If you want to learn more about St Christopher’s Academy, please click here

About This Role

This is an exciting new opportunity to be part of a new project within our Wraparound Service in the UK. As Psychological Therapist, key aspects of your role will be:

• Facilitation of Reflective Practice for residential staff to help support therapeutically informed practice, staff resilience and emotional wellbeing.
• Direct support to Looked After Children and Care Leavers to improve their emotional health and well-being, and to provide any additional support identified as needed by statutory services to those with mental health needs.
• Working with children, residential carers and social workers where care arrangements are at risk of breaking down.
• Consultative support and training to foster carers and residential staff where there are children in placement who have complex needs.
• Support the development of the UK Therapeutic Service to help meet the needs of staff and young people across the organisation.

The successful candidate will have:

• Degree in a relevant discipline (e.g. Social Work, Psychology, Counselling, Therapy)
• A minimum of three years working directly with children, young people and families
• Experience of dealing with crisis situations and working with emergency services
• A minimum of one years’ experience of delivering therapeutic interventions
• Experience of working in a multi-agency setting
• Knowledge of UK Legislative framework
• Good interpersonal and communication skills
• Knowledge/Experience of Care Planning and Care Management
• Ability to manage caseload and to work on own initiative
• Responsive to deadlines
• Excellent IT, report writing and presentation skills
• Ability and willingness to work outside of normal office hours as required

In return we offer:

• Salary of £37,500 – £40,000 depending on experience and qualifications.
• A friendly working environment, a fun, open and honest culture.
• Industry Leading training programme including children’s right and participation, CSE, empowerment, mental health and Social Pedagogy.
• 25 days holiday rising to 27 days after 3 years’ service, plus Bank Holidays.
• Contributory pension scheme, Enhanced Maternity and Company Sick Scheme.
• BUPA Employee Assistance Programme, offering counselling, financial advice and legal support.
• Interest-free season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme.
• Discount shopping scheme.
• Discretionary Funding Training Programs.
• Employee Awards based on performance and length of service.

Recruitment Process

St Christopher’s is committed to the safeguarding of all children and young people in our care including the principals of Safer Recruitment. During the recruitment process you will be expected to complete an online application form to ensure we capture essential information to meet legislation, best practice and vetting requirements to assess your suitability to work with children and young people.

Applicants will ideally already be on the DBS Update Service; if this is not the case St Christopher's will carry out a DBS (police) check prior to your start date.

Your application must include a supporting statement addressing the criteria given in the Person Specification. Please note that CV's will not be accepted.

For the full Job Description for this role and more detail about what will be required, please clickhttps here.

We advise to apply as soon as possible as applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

St Christopher’s Fellowship has a minimum age requirement of 21 for roles working directly with children and young people in our residential and semi-independent Homes.