Social Worker

Mission of the position: The social worker supports programme development in line with the “Vision, Mission, Values”, the brand and approved strategies, policies, guidelines of the organisation and national legislation. The Social worker is responsible to support children who are at risk of losing the care of their biological family which includes direct work with the children, caregivers and communities, based on the professional social work practice, ethic, values to achieve the sustainable development of the families and integration in the community. He/she 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. He/she is a member of the multidisciplinary team in the programme and coordinates multidisciplinary team work within the case he/she is responsible for.

Key performance areas and main responsibilities:

1. Programme Development

1. Supports identification of cases of children who are at risk of losing care from their families of origin through different resources (referral, outreach, self-referral etc.).
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Keeps regular contacts with child and family during the implementation of family development plan through phone calls, home visits and meetings in programme premises.
5. Documents appropriately all activities 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 national legislation and/or regional guidelines. 

1. Monitoring and Evaluation
2. Reassesses periodically the child/family needs and progress in meeting the objectives
3. defined in Family Development Plan and make decisions on the case closure, in cooperation with family members and the multidisciplinary team.
4. 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 the direct supervisor.
5. Upon the request of the direct supervisor and in accordance with the national legislation, informs regularly the child protection authorities on the case progress
6. Collects regularly information about different indicators as defined in the M&E plan of the programme unit and reports to the direct supervisor.

1. Human Resource development

1. Participates regularly in intervision sessions as well as individual or group external supervision.
2. Maintains personal and professional development to meet the changing demands of the job, participates in appropriate training activities and keeps up with organisational procedures, legislation and developments in the professional practice.

1. Partnership building and advocacy

1. Keeps regular contacts with service providers to ensure that services are provided according to objectives and actions agreed in Family Development Plan.
2. Advocates for the individual child and his/her family to have access to social entitlements or obtain needed services.
3. Contributes in community development , i.e. organise/participate in awareness raising activities, community mobilisation events and capacity building of the community partners.

1. Knowledge Management

1. Supports r in documenting good practises, human touch stories.
2. Keeps regular track of latest developments in social work area as well as changes in national legislation, policies and practises related to children in the target group.

1. Child Safeguarding (CS)

1. Responsible to raise awareness of the SOS Child Protection Policy principles and to prevent and protect children/young people from all forms of abuse, abandonment, exploitation, violence and discrimination
2. Ensures strong focus on CS prevention by organising informal and formal discussions, workshops and other capacity buildings activities for young people to make them understand  CS risks and protection mechanisms 
3. Responsible to report any CS suspicion, concern, allegation or incident immediately, following Child Safeguarding reporting procedures. CS reports should be made to the CS team at programme level and/or to the respective line manager  

Qualifications Required:

• Bachelor's Degree preferably in Social Work.

Skills and Competencies:

• He/She is a experienced person, approachable, credible, confident, leadership qualities, ability to command respect & authority, good planner & organiser, good communicator, good attitude to SOS Philosophy
• Must be well organized with good oral and written communication skills and the ability and energy to multi-task and prioritize. He/she should have a professional manner, possess good interpersonal skills and a very strong work ethic. He/She should be very honest and posses the ability to convince people. Proficient computer skills in Microsoft Office (Outlook, PowerPoint, Word & Excel) are required.