Leaving Care Worker (Staying Close - Well Being Worker)

Salary details: £ - £

An exciting opportunity has arisen within Derbyshire Leaving Care Service for a full-time Staying Close Wellbeing Worker to join our committed Leaving Care and Staying Close Team.

Based at our Young People's Hub in Chesterfield, this role will work with care-experienced young people across Derbyshire.

In this role, you will play a key part in developing and enhancing our Staying Close offer, supporting young people to create sustainable and positive futures as they transition into adulthood. Working closely with the Leaving Care Team, partner agencies, and our Clinical Psychologist, you will provide trauma-informed wellbeing support that promotes emotional wellbeing, resilience, independence, and housing stability.

You will support children in care and care-experienced young people aged 16-25, embedding Social Pedagogy, Systemic, and Trauma-Informed approaches into your practice. A strong commitment to corporate parenting and relationship-based practice will be essential, as these principles are central to achieving positive outcomes.

The role will involve working collaboratively with Leaving Care Teams and partner agencies to strengthen support for care-experienced young people. Key areas of focus include wellbeing, housing stability, participation, and co-production, ensuring young people's voices are central to service delivery and development.

You will build and maintain effective partnerships while supporting the implementation of new ways of working that enhance our existing offer. The aim is to ensure care-experienced young people receive the right support at the right time, helping them navigate the impact of attachment difficulties and relational trauma, develop confidence and independence, and achieve positive outcomes as they move into adult life.

What will I be doing: 

• Deliver trauma-informed one-to-one wellbeing sessions, supported by our Clinical Psychologist, helping young people develop emotional regulation, coping strategies, grounding techniques, and relational safety. 

• Facilitate group-based interventions, including wellbeing workshops, independent living and life skills sessions, Staying Close transition groups, and peer support opportunities.

• Use formulation-led practice to help understand each young person's experiences, triggers, strengths, and support needs, while providing practical support around budgeting, daily routines, neighbour relationships, housing applications, property bidding processes, and responding to crises.

• Work alongside young people to co-produce pathway plans, housing plans, group programmes, and resources, ensuring their voice remains central to decision-making.

• Lead participation activities that enable care-experienced young people to influence service development, shape practice, and contribute to feedback and consultation forums.

• Develop and maintain effective multi-agency partnerships, working closely with housing providers, mental health services, Leaving Care Teams, and other key professionals to promote positive outcomes and stable transitions into adulthood.
• Maintain our corporate responsibility, our positive outcomes and our culture of never giving up on our care experienced young people.
• Work with a Social Pedagogy, Systemic and trauma informed approach; supporting our young people holistically alongside our partners and locality social work teams with an aspirational approach for young people’s futures.
• Maintain a child centred approach while promoting care experienced young people’s transitions into interdependence and employment and training.
• Represent the service and our care experienced young people locally, regionally and nationally.
• You will be working within the statutory guidelines and expectations for care experienced young people and children in care.

Together, these interventions will support care-experienced young people to navigate the impact of attachment difficulties and relational trauma, build resilience, sustain accommodation, and move towards greater interdependence and wellbeing.

What skills and experience do you need to have:

• Experience of working with children in care and care-experienced young people, supporting their wellbeing, independence, and transition to adulthood

• A real passion and commitment to do more and better for our young people
• Outstanding interpersonal skills with the ability to build positive relationships with young people, workers, management and partners
• A strong advocate for care experienced young people and children in care
• Ability to reflect on own practice and development enabling flexible and thoughtful practice and positive change 

What we offer you: 

• Manageable case loads
• Two thriving offices/young person hubs
• Visible, supportive and determined manager’s
• Diverse range of cases providing an exciting, challenging and rewarding career
• Excellent supervision and a supportive peer network
• Access to an excellent range of training and development opportunities,
• Fantastic opportunities to undertake further formal qualifications and career progression through our career pathways

What benefits do we offer you?

• Local Government Pension Scheme
• generous annual leave, sick pay and flexi-time scheme
• travel expenses
• discount on leisure centre memberships
• free car parking at most sites
• an in-house counselling service
• occupational health service
• access to sessions with a trained physiotherapist
• cycle to work scheme
• DBS check undertaken and paid for by us
• Guaranteed incremental annual pay increases

Provisional Interview Date: 2nd December 2026

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Due to this post having access to children and/or vulnerable adults, the successful candidate will be required to undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service check. The possession of a criminal record will not necessarily prevent an applicant from obtaining this post, as all cases are judged individually according to the nature of the role and information provided. Click here to see our policy on criminal background checks.

Apply now and take the first step towards a fulfilling career with us! By joining Derbyshire County Council you will have access to a range of amazing rewards and employee benefits, including our generous annual leave scheme, excellent local government pension and fantastic employee discounts. To discover more detail about the rewards and benefits available to you, click here

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We welcome applications from individuals who share our values — being Collaborative, Innovative, Empowered and Accountable. These values describe who we are and what we stand for as a council. They help shape our culture, encourage consistent behaviour and guide how we work together to make a positive difference for both our employees and the residents we serve.