Family Help Lead

This is a Gloucestershire County Council job.

• Job Title: Family Help Lead
• Job Location: Tewkesbury, Stroud & Forest of Dean
• Salary: £33,143 - £40,777 per annum
• Hours per Week: 37.00
• Contract Type: Permanent
• Closing Date: 04/10/2026
• Job Requisition Number: 14667
• This post is open to job share

We have an exciting opportunity for 5 Family Help Leads to join our Tewkesbury and Stroud teams on a permanent basis, alongside a 12-month fixed-term position within our Forest of Dean team. If you are passionate about improving outcomes for children and families, we would love to hear from you.

Make a real difference to Children and Families

We have an exciting opportunity for you to join Gloucestershire Children's Services as a Family Help Lead as we continue to expand and strengthen our Family Help workforce across the county. This is an important time for the service as we implement the Department for Education's Families First Partnership Programme (FFPP) reforms, bringing together early help, social work and partner agencies to provide more joined-up support for children, young people and families in our new Family Help teams.

As part of this innovative multidisciplinary model, Family Help Leads will work across both targeted early help and, where appropriate, child in need services, helping ensure families experience continuity of support from a trusted lead practitioner rather than unnecessary changes in workers as needs change. They will work alongside Family Help Social Workers, Parenting Practitioners, Intensive Family Support Workers, Family Group Decision Making Practitioners, SEND support practitioners and multi-agency partners such as employment advisors, mental health practitioners, IDVAs and our local network of children’s centres and family hubs, to provide response, flexible relational support to families in need of support.

As a Family Help Lead, you will build positive and purposeful relationships with children, young people and their families, undertaking Family Help assessments, coordinating multi-agency support and delivering evidence-informed interventions that build resilience, reduce risk and improve outcomes. As part of a multi-disciplinary team, you will play a key role in helping children remain safely within their families wherever possible.

This is a career grade role offering progression from Family Help Lead (Grade 7) to Senior Family Help Lead (Grade 8) as you develop your knowledge, skills and experience. Practitioners at Grade 7 will primarily work with families at Targeted Early Help level, whilst Senior Family Help Leads will undertake more complex work across both Targeted Early Help and Child in Need thresholds, as well as supporting colleagues and contributing to service development.

If successful, you will be supported through a comprehensive workforce development programme run by Gloucestershire’s Academy, including Families First training, reflective supervision and opportunities to develop specialist expertise in Family Help practice such as training opportunities in parenting programmes, safer relationships domestic abuse programmes, and systemic practice. Caseloads are allocated in line with practitioner experience, skills and the needs of children and families.

We are recruiting permanent Family Help Leads to work across the following districts:

• Tewkesbury
• Gloucester
• Forest of Dean (12m Fixed term contract)

Reward and Support

For all your hard work, you will receive the following:

• between £34,237 - £42,123 per annum subject to experience
• flexible and agile working opportunities
• 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service
• option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year
• family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
• supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone
• an in-house Occupational Health service
• employee discount scheme
• links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
• career development and qualification opportunities
• access to our Social Work Academy
• Cycle to Work scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)
• Green Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)

Right child, right support, right time, every time

In our recent inspection in June 2025, our Children’s Services have been officially judged as ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ elements. Ofsted also said ‘Leaders have set out a clear vision for delivering success for children, by modelling values and creating a culture where the workforce, children and families feel valued and heard; risk is managed confidently with bottom lines clearly set out.’

This marks an important step in our journey to improve outcomes for our children and young people, and we remain focused on our mission: to continue building on this success and ensure that every child and young person in our county has the opportunity to thrive.

Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award-winning workforce.

We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to be part of an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.

About the role

As a Family Help Lead, you will play a vital role in supporting children, young people and their families, helping them build resilience and achieve positive, sustained change.

Key aspects of the role include:

• delivering evidence based interventions to vulnerable children and families
• undertaking Family Help assessments and contributing to multi-agency plans
• coordinating and delivering support using a solution-focused and strengths-based approach
• building trusted, empowering relationships with families and supporting parents through creative and engaging practice
• working collaboratively with a wide range of partner agencies and services

As a result of the reforms, this role will offer the opportunity to work more seamlessly across thresholds, helping reduce unnecessary changes of lead practitioner and providing continuity of support for families as we adopt the recommendation relating to Family Help structures across the county.

What we offer

• the opportunity to be part of significant national reform and service development
• a supportive, experienced and values-led workforce
• practice underpinned by Systemic Practice and a commitment to learning and development
• meaningful work that helps prevent escalation to higher-level services
• flexible working arrangements where service needs allow

You will be joining an authority that is committed to delivering the best possible outcomes for children and families, recognising the importance of reflective practice, collaboration, and professional curiosity.

About you

We are looking for motivated and compassionate practitioners who:

• have experience working with children, young people and families in a support or intervention-focused roles
• are confident completing assessments and plans alongside multi-agency partnerships
• can build positive, respectful relationships with families facing challenge
• are flexible in your approach and able to work evenings and weekends when required
• hold a full driving licence and have access to a car

How to apply

For an informal chat about this role, please contact Teresa Hall on Teresa.Hall2@gloucestershire.gov.uk and they will put you in touch with the suitable hiring manager.

The fixed term contract can be undertaken as a secondment upon agreement from your current line manager.

We reserve the right to close an advertisement earlier than the stated closing date if we receive a suitable number of applications.

Interviews are due to take place in person 19th and 20th October.

If you would like to find out more about our Children's Service please take a look here: Children's Social Care Careers | Gloucestershire County Council

The council is not currently able to offer sponsorship in this role. Candidates will need to have right to work that enables them to commit to at least 6 months employment. Right to work is not transferable from a sponsored role held with another employer.

Under the terms of our Safer Recruitment Policy, if you are invited to interview, we will take up safeguarding references prior to your interview to understand your suitability to work with vulnerable children. These references will then be discussed in your interview. Please give details of at least two referees, one of whom must be your present and/or last employer and the other from a previous employer(s). These will need to cover the last three years of employment/education. In the case of applicants leaving full time education or not having worked since doing so, the Head of School, College or University should be one of the named referees. We do not accept references from friends or family members or workplace colleagues (who are not more senior). To ensure we process your application in a speedy and efficient way, we will contact your referees by DocuSign. Where appropriate, please inform them of your application.

Additional Information

To access the Job Profile for this role, please follow the link below:-

Family Help Lead/Senior Family Help Lead - Job Profile

This Position is subject to a DBS check.

Gloucestershire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people or vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire’s diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential.

It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a ‘customer facing role’ must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English.

Hybrid working arrangements are available for the majority of our roles, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice, with a mix of both remote and office working.