CHILD WELLBEING PRACTITIONER

The Child Wellbeing Program (CWP) is a targeted program aimed at assisting Education staff to quickly identify vulnerable children and their families, to engage them in, and with, timely and appropriate support services, resulting in fewer children and families reaching the level of concern that requires a statutory child protection response.
Child Wellbeing staff work closely with Education sites, to enhance their ability to engage with families in a setting that is generally perceived by children and families to be accepting and positive.
The Child Wellbeing Program has been designed to provide an integral link between Education sites, Child Protection operational services and Department of Human Services (DHS), Safer Family Services (SFS).
Child Wellbeing staff will build and support collaborative systemic responses across pre-statutory child protection systems, across government and non-government service sectors.

The Child Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) works to support and engage directly with vulnerable children, young people and families at risk, and is accountable to the Supervisor, Child Wellbeing Program (CWP) for:
• Strengthening communication and understanding between the Department for Child Protection (DCP), Department for Education (EDU), and Health systems for timely and effective service responses to meeting the needs of children and their families
• Demonstrating effective case practice and case management, providing high quality and effective service delivery to respond to the needs of children and their families in a timely manner and in a supportive diversionary role
• Promoting and developing partnerships with government and non-government support services, to identify and implement responses to mitigate child protection risk (including domestic and family violence) for vulnerable children and their families
• Creating opportunities to work in collaboration with other services to effectively link vulnerable children and families to relevant services
• Identifying risk and assessing the needs of vulnerable children and families, planning and delivering focussed intervention to safeguard children and young people within their families and communities to promote positive outcomes.

Essential Qualifications:
 • An appropriate Social Work qualification from a recognised tertiary institution giving eligibility for full membership with the Australian Association of Social Workers.
• Persons of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, who have the appropriate background and skills but do not hold the essential qualification, may apply for and be engaged/assigned to the role of Social Worker and will be entitled to apply for any Allied Health Professional roles requiring a qualification in Social Work within the Department of Human Services.

Community and Family Services supports vulnerable people and families to participate in social and economic life and build stronger communities. This division comprises three key areas:

Safer Family Services (SFS) provides a wide range of intensive family support services to children, young people and families experiencing a high risk of statutory intervention from the child protection or youth justice systems. Services also include family support, community development and parenting and youth programs.

The Office for Women works across government and the community towards achieving gender equity and positive change for women in South Australia by developing policy and advising on issues affecting women to improve their safety, wellbeing and economic security. The office also oversees the Women’s Information Service to support women over the phone, online and in person, as well as regional safety hubs across the state.

Communities and Justice works towards building community safety and wellbeing by providing support and services to children, young people and families in the youth justice system, building the capacity of communities through community development projects and working in partnership with the community services sector to respond to people with complex and exceptional needs.