Project Worker 2 - Neurodevelopmental Inpatient Navigator

Are you a practitioner that has experience of working in hospital or acute inpatient settings with children, young people and young adults then we have the role for you.

Barnardo's West Yorkshire Keyworker Service is recruiting a Neurodevelopmental Inpatient Navigator who will be passionate and has experience of improving the lives of neurodiverse children, young people and young adults, develop and deliver interventions that support them whilst they are in hospital.

You will work with our Children and Young People Inpatient Practice Lead to develop and deliver the work ensuring integrated and collaborative working is achieved for positive outcomes. 

You will work with local health, education, social care and community services to develop and deliver an offer that will support neurodiverse children, young people and young adults.

Service Offer
As part of the increased offer of the West Yorkshire Keyworker Service, the development and delivery of the Neurodevelopmental Inpatient Navigator programme of work will provide neurodiverse children, young people, young adults, and their families person centred support in a hospital setting.

We will work with children, young people, young adults who are currently in acute inpatient settings in hospitals such as Leeds General Infirmary and Red Kite View and who have unclear discharge pathways.

We will identify their needs, share their voice and work towards positive outcomes. We will support the development and delivery of the work within the existing West Yorkshire Keyworker Service and contribute to a development of a model of collaborative working across all agencies.

Our aim is to offer support to families to navigate the system, encourage shared decision making and informed choices, understand what help can be provided to achieve positive outcomes for families. Support and interventions are based on needs and strengths. We will:

• Enhance skills and practice for hospital staff and other colleagues by offering consultation and training on neurodiversity and supporting and embedding the person-centred and trauma responsive approaches and interventions.
• Improve experience for children, young people, young adults.
• Capture and share children, young people, young adults voice.
• Embed and support collaborative working across different agencies and sectors.
• Contribute to the evaluation of and embed a model of work that supports children, young people, young adults in acute hospitals.

Our outcome is for individuals and families to feel informed to make decisions and know where to access support to maintain their emotional wellbeing during crisis.

As Neurodevelopmental Inpatient Navigator, you will have the following main functions:

• Work collaboratively with professionals including – hospital staff / social care / third sector / wider health and social care colleagues such as the Provider Collaborative – to develop an effective, person-centred care pathway for children, young people, young adults in hospital. Your overall aim will be to reduce hospital admission and stays and improve positive experience.
• Coordinate and chair multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs).
• Liaise with health and social care colleagues to share children, young people, young adults' voice and opinions, holding the value of ‘nothing about us without us at the core'.
• Working directly with nursing staff and wider multidisciplinary teams to support the development of person-centred care plans, communication plans and supporting others to deliver appropriate supportive interventions.
• Work alongside our Inpatient Lead to develop the work, contributing to evaluation, evidence gathering and outcome reporting.
• To apply safeguarding and child protection procedures and adhere to reporting procedures to support and promote safe practice.

Being a car driver and having access to a vehicle for work is essential in this role.

Funding, for this pilot stage is initially available until 31^st March 2026.

For further information and/or an informal please email victoria.odell@barnardos.org.uk

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application. 

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.  

Our basis and values