Social Worker

Mission of the position:

The social worker supports programme development in the field of family strengthening in line with SOS  vision, mission and values,  the brand and approved strategies, policies (including Child safeguarding*), guidelines of the organization and national legislation. Social worker is responsible to support children who are either at risk of losing the care of their biological family/in direct threat. This includes directly working with the children, caregivers and communities, based on professional social work practices, ethics, and values to achieve the sustainable development of the child and the families.

The position holder is also responsible to ensure the timely completion of the case management procedures at all stages based on the individual approach and on the active participation of children, parents/caregivers. 

Social worker Child safeguarding includes all activities that the organisation undertakes to ensure that its co-workers, operations, and programmes do no harm to children and do not expose them to the risk of harm and abuse; appropriate responses and effective management of child safeguarding concerns are in place; any concerns the organisation has about children’s safety in its own programmes and within the communities they work in are reported to the appropriate authorities.  

Key performance areas and main responsibilities:

• Programme Development Supports Emergency Response Program Focal Point in the development of services in the frame of family strengthening.
• Supports ERP Focal Point in the identification of cases of children who are at risk of losing care from their families of origin through different resources (referral, outreach etc.).
• In collaboration with the ERP FP, conducts comprehensive assessment of children and families in strong cooperation with the multidisciplinary team using different resources and social work techniques/methods to identify family needs and strengths and define the required services.
• Prepares family development plans, with the strong participation of caregivers, children and the multidisciplinary team.
• Arranges, provides and coordinates the delivery of services to children and families in strong partnership with other service providers and in line with the family development plan.
• Keeps regular contacts with child and family during the implementation of family development plan through phone calls, home visits and meetings in programme premises.
• Documents all activities such as parents attendance sheets, youth attendance sheets, self development plans, family development plans, conducted during the case management stages in the child/family case file by applying methods and tools for gathering information, as well as forms/templates, based on the requirements of ERP  procedures and requirements and taking into consideration national guidelines. 
• Monitors and Evaluates and reassesses periodically the child/family needs and progress in meeting the objectives defined in Family Development Plan and makes decisions on the case closure in collaboration with the ERP Focal Point and in cooperation with family members and the multidisciplinary team.
• Enters data regularly in the ERP Database, ensures quality of data and uses regularly the reports and data stored in the database to track individual progress of children and families.
• Provides information for new requirements (new reports, new data fields or features) to ERP Focal Point. Upon the request of ERP Focal Point and in accordance with the national legislation, informs regularly the child protection authorities on the case progress.
• Supports ERP Focal Point  in the self-evaluation and/or external evaluation processes of  ERP.
• Collects regularly information about different indicators as defined in the M&E plan of the programme unit and reports to ERP Focal Point.  
• Builds partnership, advocates and keeps regular contacts with service providers to ensure that services are provided according to objectives and actions agreed in Family Development Plan.
• Advocates for the individual child and his/her family to have access to social entitlements or obtain needed services with other organizations.
• Contributes in community development undertaken by the Family Strengthening Programme, i.e. organise/participate in awareness raising activities, community mobilisation events and capacity building of the community partners.  
• Supports ERP Focal Point in documenting good practices, human touch stories. Keeps regular track of latest developments in social work area as well as changes in national legislation, policies and practices related to children in the target group.