Do you want to be part of a team delivering Keyworker Service for children and young people in Northamptonshire? Can you support and achieve transformational change for children, young people with a learning disability, autism or both?

If you're passionate about supporting children and young people navigate services and support, this may be the opportunity for you!

Service Overview

The Keyworking function across Northamptonshire has been developed as part of the NHS long term plan for all children and young people (CYP) with a learning disability, autism or both to have a designated Keyworker.

This recruitment is for a new Keyworkers to join our team:

x1 Keyworker - 37 hours per week (Fixed Term until June 2026, with possible extension)

Initial Location of Post

The post covers the Locality so is required to work across locations in Northamptonshire You will be co-located within one of the local authorities but will also spend time together as a team to create and maintain a Keyworker team identity.

 Keyworking Function/Model

Keyworkers will work across the Northamptonshire system with and for CYP and families, capitalising on cross-system knowledge and experience to help them effectively navigate services. They will support lead professionals, ensuring that they have the knowledge of education, care and health services and processes, and are mandated to work across sectors to facilitate timely and properly integrated assessment, care and support. Staff across the team will be recruited from a range of professional backgrounds within education, social care, health and the third sector to establish a multi-disciplinary team.

The function is a system enhancer, and requires development of a strong understanding of the Northamptonshire system; to be confident in challenging the system when necessary; and forming strong relationships with CYP and families.

There will also be a strong focus on practice development, and a commitment to sharing functions and principles back into all Northamptonshire system partners.

The Keyworkers will co-ordinate, enable/organise direct support with personalisation and CYP and family-centred planning; provide effective communication, challenge, problem-solve and influence; achieve change and unblock the system.

The Keyworkers will work with the CYP's expressed views and feelings and work flexibly and responsively to help CYP and families understand and navigate the system.

The Keyworkers will ensure co-production is maintained throughout CYP and family journeys, including close working relationships with parent carer representatives who are supporting with the implementation, appraisal and monitoring of the Keyworking function.

The Keyworking function will work closely with the Northamptonshire Parent Carer Forums and parent carer representatives, who have worked as family voice consultants to co-design and co-produce the vision, implementation plans, key opportunities and processes for continuation of co-production during mobilisation and roll-out. The key principles are:

• Improving the experience of CYP
• Improving the experiences of parents/carers and families
• Improving access
• Improving quality of care

 Keyworker Role

Keyworkers will be embedded within local authorities across the Northamptonshire system, but will come together as a team regularly to ensure a team identity is developed and maintained.

Keyworkers will require a holistic understanding of the education, health and social care systems, and the expertise and authority to navigate the system and be the single point of contact for CYP and their families.

Keyworkers will require experience, passion and vision to be effective in this pivotal role. We will recruit professionals from across a range of backgrounds within health, education, social care and the third sector, with a focus on skillsets and values as opposed to specific experiences or qualifications. Must be able to travel throughout the Locality to meet the requirements of the role.

Keyworker Values

• Empathy/Understanding:believes in an approach that requires an understanding of needs from the perspective of the child, young person and family
• Respect:respects the opinions and beliefs of the child, young person and family and works to ensure they are represented, with a commitment to the principles of child-centred, personalised care
• Positive and Solution-Focused:has a positive, solution-focused approach to ensuring the best outcomes for the child, young person and family
• Commitment:commitment to ensuring the rights of children and young people with a learning disability and/or autism are protected and enforced and that their views and preferences, and those of their families, are listened and responded to
• Tenacious:in the pursuit of appropriate support and outcomes
• Always Learning:commitment to personal learning and helping the system learn and improve
• Compassionate:to listen and respond to the needs of the child, young person and family with understanding and compassion
• Collaborative:committed to joined-up, collaborative working

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application. 

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

• Reference number:22041
• Job Title:Keyworker
• Location:Northamptonshire
• Locality:Northamptonshire
• Contract type:Fixed term
• End date:30th June 2026
• Hours:37
• Salary:£32,142 - £39,105
• Closing Date:17 November 2025
• Interview Date:TBC

Benefits

Vacancy Alerts

Additional Info

• Information Sheet for Applicants Applying for Positions Working with Children and Vulnerable Adults (updated July 2021).pdf (107.00 KB)
• Barnardo's Workplace Offer Visual Summary.pdf (27.58 KB)
• Project Worker 3 - Children's Services - Job Description and Person Specification.pdf (0.55 MB)
• Recruitment of Ex-Offenders Policy Dec 2024.pdf (164.07 KB)
• Keyworker Additional Info Sheet - KW (002) (1).pdf (104.77 KB)