Start for Life Practitioner

Start for Life Practitioner

Sandwell Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies (Barnardo's)

About Family us:

Best Start Family Hubs provide a place-based approach to coordinating the delivery of integrated services for parents, carers, babies, and young children. At the heart of the model is the Start for Life Services, supporting families from conception to age two - the critical period for child development, health, and emotional wellbeing. Best Start Family Hubs also provide access to wider services for children aged 0-19, or up to 25 for young people with SEND.

Barnardo's is a key delivery partner of Sandwell's Best Start Family Hubs across six localities: Oldbury, Smethwick, Tipton, Rowley Regis, Wednesbury, and West Bromwich, with a strong focus on accessibility, prevention, and community engagement.

Role Purpose

As a Start for Life Practitioner, you will contribute to improving outcomes for babies and parents during pregnancy and the first two years of life. You will deliver universal and targeted Start for Life provision that promotes perinatal wellbeing, positive parent-infant relationships, early child development, and healthy lifestyle choices, in line with Sandwell's Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Start for Life Delivery

• Contribute to delivery of the Pregnancy and Start for Life pathways, supporting parents from pre-birth to age two.
• Act as a consistent point of contact for parents, helping them navigate universal services and access appropriate provision through activities such as well-being contacts, 1:1 support within the family home etc.
• Deliver Start for Life-focused sessions and activities, including baby clubs, baby massage, and wellbeing groups that promote bonding, attachment, and early development.

Health and Wellbeing

• Deliver interventions that promote emotional wellbeing for parents/carers and infants, incorporating perinatal mental health awareness and resilience-building approaches.
• Support positive parent-infant relationships through evidence-based approaches and reflective practice.
• Encourage healthy lifestyle behaviours during pregnancy and early parenthood.
• Promote and support infant feeding choices, including breastfeeding initiation and continuation through guidance and signposting.

Engagement, Information and Access

• Provide information, guidance, and signposting to antenatal, perinatal support, health, early learning, and community services across Sandwell.
• Support delivery of engagement events for parents and carers at different stages, including planning a family, pregnancy, and early parenthood through hosting sessions such as baby fayres etc.
• Encourage take-up of universal services, such as antenatal education, libraries, early learning opportunities and public health initiatives such as oral health, safer sleeping, nutrition etc.
• Work to reduce barriers to access for marginalised parents and communities.

Multi-Agency Working

• Work collaboratively within the Health, Wellbeing and Engagement Team and across the wider Family Hub partnership.
• Build effective links with perinatal mental health services, health visitors, midwives, early years, and voluntary sector partners.
• Support coordinated pathways by sharing information appropriately and maintaining accurate records.

Professional Practice

• Use agreed tools to identify needs and outcomes, maintaining records using systems such as EHM.
• Attend reflective supervision, performance development reviews, and mandatory training.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies priorities and evidence-based practice.
• Be flexible to work evenings and weekends where required to support service delivery.
• Undertake additional duties consistent with the role and service objectives.

Please ensure that you read the attached Additional Information Sheet and outline in your application how you meet the below shortlisting criteria.

Shortlisting Criteria

• Minimum of Level 3 qualification or equivalent in relevant field
• Experience of working with and supporting babies/children/young people and their families to achieve positive outcomes
• Deliver/ Lead a range of universal programmes in a group setting and interventions on a 1 to 1 basis
• Good understanding of child development
• The ability to work in a multiagency environment and with external agenciessecure knowledge and confidence to recognise and respond appropriately on Safeguarding concerns.
• Ability to collate and analyse information to produce high quality assessments action plans and reports

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.

Benefits

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)