GlobalARRK Parent Support Worker Role

• 15 hours a week, to start September 2024 
• Working from home (based in England) with occasional in person meetings in Bath or London
• Good internet connection needed.
• Private and confidential workspace needed for phone calls
• Annual actual salary: £9,360 (£23,400 F/T) rising each year if funding permits
• Permanent contract

Could you be there to support our Stuck Parents through the toughest moments of their lives?

You are really doing an amazing job and again thanks a million for your help and advice and your kindness and understanding. – A Stuck Parent

About GlobalARRK

GlobalARRK is a charity which supports single parents in need who are ‘stuck’ in a foreign country after a relationship breakdown. Around 30% of these parents have taken their children to their home country and are being charged with International parental Child Abduction. The rest are just ‘stuck’, perhaps they have recently separated or are applying to ‘Relocate’ to their home country. We help those who are in need – typically they are suffering domestic abuse, they are poor, homeless, visa-less or just isolated.

We support ‘Stuck Parents’ by providing information, signposting to expert legal professionals and specialist charities (eg domestic violence, homelessness etc) and speaking to parents to offer emotional support. We also advocate for stuck parents and raise awareness on this issue working towards a child centred system where families can survive and thrive.

We are committed to Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and wish to make our charity and services as inclusive and friendly to all as possible. We especially wish to encourage those with lived experience of other cultures and languages to apply as we support parents from over 40 countries.

About the role:

This role involves directly supporting our stuck parents via phone call, calling each parent for around 30 minutes to find out what they need and either providing emotional support, information, direct services or signposting them to other services that meet their needs.

In addition you will be co-facilitating online group work, in particular a course called ‘The Recovery Toolkit’ which supports people to recover from domestic abuse. All necessary training will be provided.

We are a small charity so everyone’s role is broad and the team works flexibly to cover all the many aspects of running a charity. We offer training for staff to develop in their areas of interest if it is in line with meeting charity objectives.

Working pattern:

We all work part time and flexibly to fit in with other commitments however it will be helpful to establish a regular working pattern for this role so that we can schedule calls, meetings and group work. We have a team meeting online each Monday morning that you would need to attend.

Due to our beneficiaries being single parents, most workshops and groups need to be in the evening so you would need to be prepared to do one or two evenings work per week from 7pm-8pm for example.

Values: We use our GA values of Compassion, Courage & Persistence in everything we do from supporting parents to campaigning for change. Our team works in a friendly, inclusive and trauma informed way and we recognise that due to the inherently stressful work we do we must do everything we can to support staff wellbeing and that includes having boundaries and holiday time/ time off.

Accountability: You will be supported by and ultimately report to the CEO. Once a year you will be invited to take part in an appraisal process to reflect on the duties listed below.

Safer recruitment: We will require a DBS check for all staff

Person specification

Essential:

• Experience of supporting vulnerable adults
• Able to work remotely from home and have a confidential workspace with internet
• Good IT skills: use of Word, Excel, GDocs, CRM, Zoom.
• Emotionally Resilient: to be able to cope with supporting vulnerable people with complex practical and emotional needs

Desirable:

• Helpline experience
• Experience of training or facilitating groups
• Experienced in Safeguarding
• Familiar with International Family Law - The Hague Convention/ Relocation. If not training will be provided!
• Lived experience of being a stuck parent or similar
• Foreign language speakers
• Experience and understanding of other cultures

Accountability: You will be supported by and ultimately report to the CEO. Once a year you will be invited to take part in an appraisal process to reflect on the duties listed below.

Main Duties include: 

• Co-Facilitating The Recovery Toolkit / other groups
• Speaking to parents via the call back helpline: Providing empathy and listening support, signposting and legal information.
• Follow our safeguarding policy and procedure to keep parents safer
• Add parents to our peer support groups on Facebook
• Refer parents to the law firms on our lists
• Updating information for parents
• General admin when needed e.g., writing minutes of meetings, policy updates, monthly reports

Map of approximate hours

To apply, please submit your C.V. plus a covering letter of no more than 2 sides of A4, setting out exactly how your skills, knowledge, training and previous experience, whether paid or unpaid, are relevant to this post, and explaining your motivations for applying.

The deadline for applications is Monday 26^th August 2024 at 9am

Send your application or any questions to CEO Roz Osborne: office@globalarrk.org