About the Service
The Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Service (ECFWS) brings together a range of existing services and is jointly commissioned by Essex County Council and the West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group.
The service is delivered by HCRG Care Group, in partnership with Barnardo's, and is designed to ensure families have easy access to local support. Staff work flexibly within the community, delivering services from Family Hubs and Delivery Sites, Early Years settings, schools, and family homes.
This innovative “services without walls” approach ensures that children and families who need support the most are reached quickly and effectively.
Areas of Support
The service delivers support across the following areas:
- Health Visiting
- Parenting Support
- School Nursing
- Family Health
- Resilience and Child Development
- Support for children and young people aged 0–19(up to25 for SEND)
For further information, please visitwww.essexfamilywellbeing.co.uk
About the Role
We are looking to recruit a Family Hub Practitioner to support with our Hub delivery.
The successful candidate will have skills and experience in Early Years, Childcare, and Family Support, and a strong commitment to improving outcomes for children and families.
Key Responsibilities
Healthy Family Support Practitioners work with children, young people (pre‑birth to 19, or up to 25 for SEND) and their parents/carers, both individually and in groups, to:
- Increase skills, confidence, and resilience
- Support families to live safely and positively
- Identify needs and deliver effective, outcome‑focused interventions
Work will take place in Family Hubs, community settings, and group environments, using a variety of evidence‑based approaches.
Practitioners provide both universal and targeted intensive support, aligned to service outcomes. This includes using age‑appropriate, evidence‑informed frameworks (for example, the Early Years Foundation Stage) to plan and deliver high‑quality services that:
- Support parents/carers
- Enable children to thrive and reach their full potential
- Promote school readiness
Application Information
When completing your application, please clearly demonstrate how your skills, knowledge, and experience meet the Person Specification, Job Description, and Additional Information document (where applicable), with an understanding of the service context outlined above.
Please note:
Due to the high volume of applications, this vacancy may close early. We strongly encourage early applications.
Contact
If you have any questions about this role, please contact:Davina.Francis@barnardos.org.uk
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 require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)
- 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 Buy Your Leave 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:22846
- Job Title:Family Hub Practitioner
- Location:Colchester
- Locality:Colchester
- Contract type:Permanent
- Hours:30
- Salary:£26,721 FTE (£21,665 pro rata)
- Closing Date:1 May 2026