In-School Youth Worker

The Les Twentyman Foundation believes that every child and young person, regardless of economic circumstances, race or gender deserves an equal opportunity in life.

Working across Greater Melbourne, our dedicated team supports hundreds of kids aged between five and 25, who face multiple stresses holding them back from living a life that every child deserves, including poverty, mental health, unemployment, racism, addiction, domestic violence and crime.

Founded by legendary youth worker Les Twentyman OAM, we have a history of more than 30 years supporting at-risk youth. Our work focuses on keeping children and young people engaged with their education, families and connected to the community, building hope and ensuring they do not end up homeless, living in poverty or engaged with the youth justice system.

The Positive Futures program embeds youth workers in a number of schools across Melbourne's southeast. The program keeps students engaged with their education and provides support for complex social and emotional needs or behavioural problems. It includes one-on-one counselling, group work and outreach activities.

The In-School Youth Worker focuses on working closely with the host school, whilst matching strategies and interventions to the developmental requirements of young people. There is an emphasis on outreach, where the youth worker will attend family homes, community centres and build networks to better enable the young people to remain engaged with education, family and community.

The In-School Youth Worker role has responsibility for a caseload as well as administrative aspects of the case management. This is an exciting opportunity that involve working directly with young people and their families. On the service delivery side of the role, the Youth Worker will implement strategies and counselling to connect young people with their families, community and education networks, in ways that are developmentally appropriate and responsive to the needs of individual young people.

Working as part of the Schools Team, the In-School Youth Worker will have the following responsibilities:

• Undertake individual case management, group work, family work, collaboration, care planning and referrals to services such as primary health, housing, legal, justice, employment/educational and recreational activities
• Connect with and relate to young people from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, African, Pasifika and other CALD communities
• Facilitate group sessions on a regular basis within schools.
• Undertake assertive outreach to initiate and maintain contact with young people
• Advocate on behalf of young people and build collaborative relationships with key stakeholders to enhance service co-ordination
• Ensure client files and reporting is up to date, accurate and meets both organisational and legislative requirements and timeframes
• Collaborate on the planning, development and delivery of the program including continuous improvement
• Support other activities of the Les Twentyman Foundation as required including events, fundraising activities and business development
• Support the development and growth of the program in collaboration with the management team
• Undertake other reasonable duties as requested by the General Manager, Programs.

• Relevant qualifications in Youth Work, Social Work, Family Therapy, Psychology or other health/welfare
• Demonstrated experience working with young people, schools, employment, and recreation services. Previous experience working within schools will be highly regarded.
• Demonstrated ability to advocate on behalf of young people, in particular with stakeholders within the education sector
• Ability to undertake a high standard of documentation, reporting, compliance and policy management, legislation monitoring and organisational procedures including CS-Net
• Knowledge and understanding of adolescent development and ability to practice a range of interventions including assessment, case work, care planning, group work, advocacy, crisis intervention and collaborative outreach based service delivery
• Strong engagement and communication skills with young people from a range of backgrounds and age groups
• Demonstrated capacity to work effectively both independently and within a multidisciplinary team setting

Please get your application as soon as possible. Applications will close at 5PM on Monday September 1.

LTF is an equal opportunity employer and we welcome applications from all sectors of the community.

LTF has a zero tolerance for child abuse and is committed to the provision of a child-safe organisation.