The posting
Job Description
1. People Management
- No direct supervisory responsibility however there may be a requirement to assist in induction and training of peers and new employees.
2. Customer Management
- To demonstrate understanding of the Councils Customer Care Standards and ensure that these standards are met in order to deliver the Council vision of putting our residents first.
3. Operational Service Delivery
- To engage families at the point of entry to the service by providing an environment where families feel welcome and supported, and to forge strong working relationships with the families.
- To manage the reception area, greeting all visitors warmly and ensuring it remains a welcoming, clean and pleasant environment and ensuring that safety checks and procedures are implemented and advised to visitors to the centre.
- To establish and maintain good relationships with all site users, parents/carers and visitors and to enhance community development.
- To manage enquiries to the children's centre by telephone, email and face to face contact from parents, professionals, voluntary organisations, statutory agencies and the general public.
- To offer information, advice and guidance in response to enquiries received from families, including childcare, health, benefits and financial matters; demonstrating a breadth of knowledge of local support, and signposting on to services as appropriate.
- To seek regular feedback from centre users and collate and report responses to the centre co-ordinator.
- To maintain the centre calendar and diary, detailing training and meeting dates and ensure these are kept up to date and accessible to the centre team and wider locality as appropriate.
- To maintain the children's centre database ensuring registration and attendance data is inputted and kept up to date.
- To ensure that all family records and sensitive data, both paper and electronic are stored and maintained in accordance with Council Data Protection policy and procedure.
- To lead on the co-ordination and administration of the 'Your Bump and Beyond' ante-natal programme for the locality, ensuring sufficiency of provision and access to the programme for Parents-to-be at the appropriate time.
- To use the Council's procurement and financial management systems, e.g. Oracle, for the ordering of resources and supplies for the centre, managing the receipting, checking and distribution of deliveries in a timely manner.
- To ensure that the data held on the children's centre database is up to date and of the highest quality by:
- Developing and implementing systems and processes to ensure data integrity
- Auditing family records and ensuring inaccuracies and duplicates are rectified speedily and communicated to colleagues within the locality.
- To be a super user for the children's centre database, providing advice, support and bespoke training for users within the locality.
- In conjunction with the children's centre locality lead officer, produce statistical reports and analysis, using appropriate software packages, e.g. excel, access and other associated systems and to prepare and validate information for management reports.
- To manage and implement robust systems for the management of service user information, reviewing processes of data retention and implementing systems to ensure continuing best practice, in accordance with Council Data Protection policy and procedure.
4. Service Planning & Development
- Maintain knowledge of the current locality Plan and understanding of own contribution in order to ensure delivery of this plan.
5. Financial & Resource Management
- To demonstrate cost-consciousness and identify any cost effective changes to own way of working.
6. Continuous Improvement
- To identify and suggest any improvements to current ways of working in order to deliver a more efficient and effective service for families.
7. Contacts
- Service users and front line professional staff across social care, health, housing, education and the voluntary sector.
8. Additional Responsibilities
- Complete other reasonable tasks in order to fulfil role purpose or as required by management.
Person Specification
QUALIFICATIONS:
Essentials:
- Educated to GCSE level (or equivalent) including English and Maths
Desirables:
- First Aid at Work qualification
ROLE SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
Essentials:
- Ability to work flexibly to meet the needs of the service - postholder will be assigned to one establishment but may occasionally be required to cover other sites
EXPERIENCE
Essentials:
- Demonstrable experience of working effectively as part of a team in a busy, multi-agency environment
- Experience of using a range of ICT software systems and packages
Desirables:
- Experience of working in a children's centre
- Experience of working with families with complex needs
KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS:
Essentials:
- Excellent ICT skills and the ability to learn new systems as required
- Ability to be the superuser with regard to the childrens database, supporting the wider staff group to make best use of the resource.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to respond effectively to a wide range of enquiries
- Ability to produce documents to a high quality, paying particular attention to grammar and spelling
- Ability to be flexible and prioritise work to meet deadlines
- Ability to effectively enter, amend and quality assure data, observing the need for confidentiality
- Ability to produce basic management information from a database
- Demonstrable ability to develop positive relationships with children, their families and the wider community
- Ability to signpost families appropriately using knowledge of the local area and the range of services and support available to young children and their families
- Knowledge of the issues impacting on the lives of children, young people and families, particularly the vulnerable
- Knowledge of safeguarding procedures and child protection policy and practice.
COMPETENCIES
- Can do positive attitude
Demonstrates a commitment to changing work practices and processes, and a willingness to try new ways of working or thinking.
- Takes responsibility and delivers results
Adapts to changing demands to ensure that objectives are met, overcoming problems and making well considered decisions.
- Team working
Acts as a role model to others in the team, sharing knowledge and experience when necessary, whilst respecting and valuing the contribution other team members experiences can bring.
- Communication
Demonstrates well developed written and verbal communication skills; and the confidence to present reports and verbal accounts credibly to a variety of different audiences.
- Customer Care
Develops contacts and relationships with customer/ client groups, regularly reviewing service delivery and taking responsibility to ensure quality service provision.
- Takes ownership of personal development
Takes action to develop own and others' capability and knowledge by promoting and supporting developmental opportunities to improve performance.
