Child Counsellor – Narre Warren – Contract/Temp

Better Place Australia has a vision of “An Australia where all people experience positive relationships, truly value each other and live safer, more fulfilling lives”.  Our purpose is “To empower people to become more resilient and experience improved wellbeing to better determine their futures”.

Our organisational values are at the forefront of all interactions with our employees, our clients and our stakeholders. We are:

CreativeCaringWelcomingResponsive; andThriving

As a community focused ‘for-purpose’ organisation with an ever-growing range of psychological and community support services, Better Place Australia is taking a leadership role in the provision of high-quality, effective services for a wide range of community groups across Victoria.

This is an opportunity to join our expanding team of highly experienced and passionate people who want to make Australia a better place.

The Role

Skills

Child Counsellors provide therapeutic interventions to children from separating families which includes child consultations as part of the Family Dispute Resolution process, individual child counselling, group work facilitation and education and skills training. Specific work tasks include:

Undertaking risk assessments with children and family to determine level of support and nature of intervention required;Provision of counselling to children and adolescents using a range of therapeutic interventions;Provision of timely and appropriate referrals for children and their families as required, and;Ongoing communication and psycho-education with parents throughout counselling to ensure children continue to be supported.

A typical day as a Child Counsellor

You are a practitioner with a strong commitment to support the wellbeing of children and young people through individual strength-based counselling and advocacy. You ideally will have experience working in a similar role either in private practice, schools, or community/family service sector, and have experience supporting children, young people and their families through complex transitional periods such as parental separation. A typical day could involve you seeing children either face to face in the office or at a local school for individual counselling or speaking to parents advocating for the child’s wellbeing through positive parenting strategies. Note that this role will include time spent working from home and providing flexible telehealth services.

What You Will Need

To be considered for appointment to this role, prospective candidates must possess relevant tertiary qualifications (ie. Psychology, Social Work, Counselling) together with demonstrated experience in providing assessment, counselling and support to school aged children and families in the context of their parents’ separation. Demonstrated experience and commitment to working with children from separated families is essential as is knowledge and understanding of child development and a strong working knowledge of relevant theoretical approaches for working with children. Other essential criteria include excellent communication and interpersonal skills; the ability to engage and build rapport with clients; well developed organisation and time management skills and a proven ability to deliver child inclusive practice in a culturally sensitive manner.

Employee Benefits

Better Place Australia is serious about being an employer of choice; and to back that claim we offer:

Generous above award salary ratesSalary packaging (which increases your take home pay)Additional annual leave (between Christmas and New Year)Annual leave loading of 17.5% loading12 weeks paid parental leaveUp to 20 days family violence leavePaid study leave and extensive professional development opportunities

Apply now

This is a part time (0.8 FTE) 12 month fixed term parental leave contract until 30 September 2027. This dynamic outreach role is primarily based at our Narre Warren site however other locations may be required. Evening work (until 8pm) will be required on one evening per week.

We also welcome applications from provisional psychologists in the 5+1 Internship Program.

Better Place Australia

Better Place Australia is a for-purpose organisation, providing services for all members of the community regardless of religion, age, gender, sexuality, lifestyle choice, cultural background or economic circumstances. We offer a workplace culture reflective of a vibrant, learning organisation where our people are highly engaged in their work and committed to making a difference.

At BPA, we all have a shared responsibility for supporting a culture of inclusivity and diversity. Our organisation is committed to child safety and we carry out police record, working with children and reference checks to ensure that we are recruiting the right people.

Workplace Flexibility

Here at Better Place Australia we embrace flexible ways of working including work from home. We encourage you to talk to us about what flexibility might look like for you and your individual needs.

Further Information

For further information, please download and read the copy of the position description.

Whilst we appreciate the interest of all prospective candidates, please note that only short-listed applicants will be contacted. Apply today – we look forward to hearing from you.