Carers Practice Advisor

This role has a starting salary of £31,262 per annum based on a 36 hour working week.

This position is offered as a 6 month fixed-term contract.

We are excited to be hiring a new Carers Practice Advisor to join our fantastic Mid Surrey teams based in Epsom, Weybridge and Mole Valley and at the acute hospital, Epsom General.

We are currently looking for an individual who is interested in developing their working experience in social care particularly supporting unpaid carers. You may already have some experience of social care and working with carers however, this is not essential. We are most interested in recruiting people who are keen to learn, progress their professional development and grow with our teams!

As you will be covering a number of teams, you will have the choice to work flexibly in the office to support colleagues and at carers support services in the community with opportunity for hybrid working as required.

Rewards and Benefits

• 26 days' holiday (pro-rata for part-time staff), rising to 28 days after 2 years' service and 30 days after 5 years' service
• Option to buy up to 10 days of additional annual leave
• An extensive Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support health and wellbeing
• Up to 5 days of carer's leave per year
• Paternity, adoption and dependents leave
• A generous local government salary related pension
• Lifestyle discounts including gym, travel, shopping and many more
• 2 paid volunteering days plus 1 team volunteering day per year
• Learning and development hub where you can access a wealth of resources

About the Team

Our Adult Social Care teams across Mid Surrey area strive in everything we do to enable carers to live well, to be recognised and respected and have access to advice and support in response to their needs. Our goal is for our unpaid carers be able to be more in control of their lives, making informed choices and being active citizens in their community.

About the Role

You will be a carers champion, leading and developing carer's practice within the social care teams and working with practitioners to support carers in complex situations through finding creative and dynamic support solutions in line with our Care Act 2014 statutory duties.

A day in the life of the Carers Practice Advisor may include joint working with practitioners on cases, leading training and best practice information sessions with colleagues within your teams. You will be networking with our colleagues in the health sector, carers support organisations and local voluntary sector groups to support better collaboration. You will be presenting information sessions to public groups, representing your team at local strategy groups, and supporting a colleague on a complex visit involving a carer.

Other typical tasks will include delivering preventative, early identification and new initiatives workshops to your own teams as well as at carer support group sessions in our local communities. You will be presenting data reports reviewing your team's performance against defined carer and young carer performance measures and developing an action plan with your management team to deliver improvement measures to ensure best practice.

You will work alongside your team-based Adult Social Care practitioners as well as our area-based team of other Carer Practice Advisors overseen by our Senior Carers Practice & Development Lead. You will collaborate with them on new ways of working to deliver best practice and improve your team's Carers performance. This is all in line with the Care Act 2014 and our Carers Strategy to really influence change for unpaid carers and make sure no one is left behind.

To help us deliver this vital support to our carers in Surrey we need passionate people who are equally determined about making a difference to someone's life.

Shortlisting Criteria

To be considered for shortlisting for this position, your application will clearly evidence the following:

• Experience of working with carers and young carers in a social care context
• Working knowledge of Care Act 2014 legislation
• Experiences dealing with internal and external partners, voluntary and other key carer organisations
• Evidence of good IT skills and other Microsoft Office applications with experience of presenting data and information to small groups
• Skills in strength-based, outcome focused and person centred approaches
• Evidence of good co-production with carers and support groups
• Ability to travel across the Mid area of Surrey to support carers

Contact us

Please contact us for any questions relating to the role. This could be to discuss flexible working requests, transferable skills or any barriers to employment.

For an informal discussion please contact Lisa Woodruff Truscott at .

The job advert closes at 23:59 on 04/05/2024

Our Commitment

Surrey County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. A guaranteed interview will be offered to all disabled applications where:

• The candidate has evidenced the minimum criteria for the role through their application
• The candidate has chosen to share that they have a disability on the application form

Our application form and onboarding process will provide an opportunity to request any reasonable adjustments for the interview and/or the role.

We want to be an inclusive and diverse employer reflecting the community we serve and particularly welcome applications from all underrepresented groups.