Youth Engagement Officer

Bexley Youth Justice Service (YJS) is part of a successful partnership and at the heart of developments to prevent crime and promote the inclusion of children in Bexley. The service is multi-agency and co-ordinates and delivers all youth justice services for children aged 10-17 years who have been referred by police or Courts.

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join us on a fixed-term contract as a Youth Engagement Worker. You will work with children on the cusp of entering the youth justice system, such as children who have been interviewed under caution, released under investigation, on police bail or where an offence has resulted in a No Further Action decision. You will also work with children who have been acquitted, discharged, or fined by a court or where there are concerns around anti-social behaviour.

This is an early help role sitting within the YJS; the participation of children and their families will be on an entirely voluntary basis. You will therefore need to bring excellent engagement skills, creativity, tenacity, and passion to help children achieve their full potential.

We are a high performing service and welcome candidates who share our obsession to help children and young people overcome barriers to achieve and succeed. You will need to either have a relevant professional qualification such as in Youth Work, Social Work or Youth Justice, and/or have significant experience in working with adolescents.

It is important that you have a creative approach, plenty of energy, initiative, and the ability to forge effective partnerships with other agencies. We are especially interested in candidates who are familiar with trauma-informed practice and have experience of delivering interventions within such a framework.

Bexley Children’s Services has adopted Signs of Safety as its practice model. This strengths and solution focused ethos of working with families and colleagues is threaded throughout all areas of Children’s Social Care. As part of your role you will work alongside this practice framework.

Bexley provides exceptional training, development and supervision and our YJS staff retention rates are excellent.

The successful candidate will be given opportunities to develop skills and knowledge across children’s services.

Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.