Lily of the Valley Children's Village:Social Worker

Lily of the Valley provides holistic care for children and youth who have been marginalised through HIV and AIDS and a broken society.

Lily of the Valley Children's Village seeks to appoint a Social Worker to be based in Durban.
 
To work purposefully within the child care team towards meeting the developmental and therapeutic needs of each child and his/her family, with the goal being to reunify young people with family and/or community in the shortest time possible.
The social worker manages the case, providing the psycho-social assessment and therapeutic counselling required, guiding the child care team and liaising with the placing agency.
 
Line of  Authority: 

• Accountable to the Management Committee.
• Directly accountable to the General Manager.
• Accountable to the child care team for the rendering of professional services.

Standards of Perfomance:

• The Children’s Act, regulations and norms and standards as related to child and youth care centres.
• National Policy as it relates to the field of Child and Youth Care.
• Policy and procedures as they relate to the Durban Child and Youth Care Centre.                                   
• Relevant trends in the field of Child and Family Welfare.

Controls and Measures of perfomance:

• Supervision
• Authorized Consultation
• Annual Appraisal

Please note that this job description is dynamic.  It will constantly change to meet the needs of the programme.
 
Tasks:

• Services to young people and families
• Develop IDP’s
• Receive and screen applications for admission
• Lead the admissions process
• Provide young people with individual counselling
• Provide trauma counselling and debriefing as required
• Facilitate identified therapeutic group work
• Design and implement protective behaviours group discussions
• Facilitate adoption processes
• Monitor the orientation and disengagement processes of young people
• Provide effective aftercare services once young people have left the programme
• Coordinate weekend and holiday placements
• Facilitate weekly case discussions with each unit
• Screen applications for hosting and foster care and refer where necessary

Developmental assessment:

• Ensure that every young person admitted has a valid care plan
• Coordinate the developmental assessment process by establishing and maintaining clear expectations from the child care team
• Coordinate and lead regular case reviews
• Gather the information required and develop an Individual Developmental Plan for each young person, making the necessary adjustments after each case review
• Guide and monitor the child care team’s implementation of the young person’s Individual Developmental Plan
• Ensure full participation by the young person and family in the assessment process and subsequent review processes

Liaise with other service providers:

• Liaise directly with the agency social worker on all matters relating to the young person and family
• Liaise with schools on critical issues which may jeopardise the young person’s education
• Share information gathered from the agency social worker on the present circumstances of the family with the child care team
• Make referrals for host/foster care placements
• Make referrals for specific assessment/therapy as identified by the developmental process
• Monitor progress in terms of referral for therapeutic interventions, sourcing feedback reports and using this feedback to inform the Individual Development Plan
• Secure services required by the young person in terms of holistic development

Liaise with families of young people:

• Ensure that families participate where possible in all decisions which affect their child
• Provide family with information on the young person’s participation within the programme
• Facilitate family group conferencing when required
• Conduct home visits as required

Administration:

• Ensure that the Department of Social Development requirements for subsidy claims are submitted timeously
• Ensure that the Department of Social Development requirements for compliance are submitted timeously
• Complete all statutory reports timeously
• Attend all official meetings called by the Department
• Create and maintain an individual personal file for all young people as required by the Department
• Keep all registers related to the child care programme as required
• Prepare a monthly report for the Management Committee on services provided to young people

Statutory requirements:

• Ensure that the Rights of Children and family are upheld by the programme at all times
• Investigate any allegation of use of prohibited behaviour measures
• Report incidents of any use of prohibited behaviour measure to the General Manager
• Report any reportable incident to the General Manager
• Prepare reports on all critical incidents as required
• Keep recordings of all interventions with young people
• Keep minutes of all meetings with the child care team

Supervision of student social work placements:

• Develop and maintain formal agreements with educational institutions referring social work students for practical placement
• Inform the team of the requirements of the student social workers placement and their role in the monitoring and evaluation of the placement
• Design and implement an orientation programme for social work students
• Provide social work students with regular supervision
• Provide the placing educational institution with progress reports on the students as set out in the formal agreement
• Facilitate the evaluation of the student social workers practical placement

Volunteer programme:

• Together with the child care team identify areas within the programme which require support from volunteers
• Screen all applications for volunteering, including; interviewing, reference checking and clearance
• Provide orientation to prospective volunteers
• Maintain relationship with volunteers
• Coordinate an annual event/activity to thank volunteers for their service
• Maintain volunteer records and keep updated

Qualifications:  

• Social Work Degree

Please direct applications to generalmanager@lov.org.za

Please quote the source of this advertisement in your application - NGO Pulse Portal

For more about Lily of the Valley Children’s Village, refer to lov.org.za

For other vacancies in the NGO sector, refer to www.ngopulse.org/vacancies