Project Worker

Barnardo's Midlands Fostering Service is looking for a passionate and dedicated Project Worker to join our team and make a real difference in the lives of care-experienced young people and their foster families.

About the Role:

As a Project Worker, you'll play a vital role in supporting young people who have experienced care, working both 1-to-1 and in group settings to build relationships, confidence, and resilience.

In parallel, you'll work closely with foster carers, helping them to maintain and strengthen foster home stability through advice, emotional support, and proactive engagement.

This is a varied and rewarding role where no two days are the same. You'll also take the lead in planning and delivering participation and social events, giving young people and carers a voice and creating opportunities for connection and celebration.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide tailored 1:1 support to care-experienced young people.

• Facilitate group sessions and workshops to promote wellbeing, life skills, and peer support.

• Collaborate with foster carers to strengthen relationships and maintain stable foster homes.

• Support participation and engagement initiatives within the fostering service.

• Organise and take part in social events and activities for young people and carers.

• Work closely with colleagues and partner agencies to ensure holistic support.

What We're Looking For:

• Experience working with children and young people, ideally those with care experience.

• Strong understanding of fostering and the challenges faced by foster families.

• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.

• Ability to work flexibly, creatively, and independently as well as part of a team.

• Commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.

This is a hybrid role, with an expectation to attend the office approximately 2-3 times a month. The office is based in Halesowen.

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