Independent Visitor Coordinator

Job Title: Independent Visitor Co-ordinator

Service: Manchester

Reporting to: Children’s Rights Manager

Salary: £19,434.82 (£24,293.53 FTE) per annum

Location: Home based (with travel across the region)

Hours: 28 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Coram is committed to improving the lives of the UK’s most vulnerable children and young people.

We support children and young people from birth to independence, creating a change that lasts a lifetime.

Coram is the UK’s oldest children’s charity founded by Thomas Coram in London helping vulnerable children and young people since 1739. Today, the Coram group helps more than one million children, young people, families and professionals every year by providing access to the skills and opportunities they need to thrive.

Coram Voice is a national independent children’s charity established in 1975 and has grown to become one of the leading organisations for children and young people in the UK.

Coram Voice is a leading children’s rights organisation. We champion the rights of children. We get young voices heard in decisions that matter to them and work to improve the lives of children in care, care leavers and others who depend upon the help of the state.

We provide:

• Advocacy services direct to children and young people in care, in need, in custody and to care leavers and children and young people with severe and complex mental health problems. Advocates around the country support children and young people to get their voice heard in decisions about their lives.
  
  This may be through the telephone helpline or through an advocate working directly with a child, for instance, to support them at a review meeting or to help them make a complaint about their care. Coram Voice provides visiting advocacy services to most of the secure units nationally, to Secure Training Centres, Juvenile Young Offender Institutions, psychiatric hospitals, residential special schools and children’s homes.
• Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) to advocate for young people as qualifying patients under the Mental Health Act, in order to fully support them to get their views heard in matters relating to their mental health.
• Independent Visitor services offers a child or young person in care an adult volunteer who provides independent, one-to-one visiting, advice and befriending support. Our independent visitors can become the only long-term, consistent source of support throughout a young person's time in care.
• Independent services provide independent person services for complaints by children and for reviewing whether children should be locked up in secure units on welfare grounds.
• Policy and campaigning to create a better system for all children and young people looked after by the state, for their care to be more child-centred and to give young people a greater say in decisions about their lives.
• Participation services to ensure children and young people have a voice in the development and delivery of services and campaigns, and through the process, provide the opportunity to develop relevant skills which will be of benefit to them in their future lives.
• Training, development and information for young people, advocates and child care workers, offering courses in advocacy, children’s rights and child-centred practice across a range of areas including the National Advocacy Qualification.

• Are you passionate about supporting and developing volunteers?
• Are you looking for an opportunity to help make positive differences to the lives of children and young people who are looked after or care leavers of the local authority?
• Do you want to work with a leading national independent children’s charity?

Then come join us here at Coram Voice. We have an exciting opportunity for you to become a co-ordinator of our independent visiting service in Manchester.

We are seeking candidates who are committed to our objectives for children and young people and equally committed to the organisation and the development of our services. We recognise we are a predominantly white workforce and are genuinely committed to encouraging candidates from diverse communities in order to improve…