Sustaining Families NSW Social Worker

We are a health service that touches thousands of lives across the Northern Sydney Local Health District. Our teams have meaningful, interesting, and rewarding work every day. We challenge and nurture each other, sharing knowledge and experience to deliver better care. There’s a real sense of belonging, valuing and respecting our patients, employees, and teams’ voices. Innovation is at our core, with opportunities for research-driven, evidence-based practice.

About the role

The Senior Social Worker (SW) works collaboratively as a senior member of the interdisciplinary Sustaining NSW Families (SNF) Team, providing antenatal and postnatal support and intervention to vulnerable families in home and community settings. This role supports families primarily identified in the antenatal period until children reach 2 years old, aiming to foster healthy parent-child relationships and optimize infant health, well-being, and development in the first 2000 days of life.

The SNF SW holds specialist expertise in parent-child attachment, infant development, family work, and counseling. They provide high-level clinical consultancy, advice, and guidance to allied health and nursing colleagues, contribute to team case reviews and family case conferences, and offer clinical supervision for social work students and some nurses.

The role involves working with the SNF nursing team to engage families, conduct assessments, and provide psychosocial support for families with complex needs. Interventions include individual and parent counseling, psychoeducation, brief family therapy, solution-focused casework, case management, referral facilitation, and parent group work.

SNF is part of the Northern Sydney Local Health District (NSLHD) Child, Youth and Family (CYF) Community Health Service, which provides child-centered, safe, culturally sensitive, trauma- and evidence-informed, neurodiversity-affirming, and integrated care.

People of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background are encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities

• Provide high-level social work clinical consultancy, advice, and guidance to allied health and nursing colleagues.
• Contribute to team case reviews and family case conferences.
• Offer clinical supervision for social work students and some nurses.
• Collaborate with the SNF nursing team to engage families, conduct assessments, and provide psychosocial support for families with complex needs.
• Deliver therapeutic interventions, including individual and parent counseling, psychoeducation, brief family therapy, solution-focused casework, case management, referral facilitation, and parent group work.
• Undertake comprehensive psychosocial family assessments with high-level professional judgment and critical thinking.
• Work within a child-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally sensitive framework.

Requirements

• Degree in Social Work from an accredited course providing eligibility for membership of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW). Overseas qualifications must supply the AASW Overseas Assessment number.
• Eligible NSW Driver Licence and willingness to travel for work.
• Demonstrated understanding of the current AASW Practice Standards and commitment to updating professional skills and knowledge.
• Extensive experience as a Level 2 Social Worker with advanced skills in working therapeutically with families experiencing multiple psychosocial stressors.
• Understanding of how psychosocial issues, including trauma, impact pregnancy, child development, parent-child relationships, and parenting capacity.
• Knowledge of and experience in therapeutic interventions, including individual, family, and relationship counseling, solution-focused interventions, care coordination, and casework skills.
• Advanced-level skills and ability to independently undertake comprehensive psychosocial family assessments.

Benefits

• Generous staff benefits, including salary packaging and fitness passport.
• Opportunities for career progression, supported by training, secondments, recognition, and mentorship.
• Inclusive and diverse workplace committed to respect and safety, free from aggression, sexual harassment, discrimination, and racism.

Pay

$61.31 - $63.30 per hour

Schedule

• Temporary Part Time until 24 January 2027 (with possibility of ongoing employment).
• 24 hours per week.

This is a NSW Health Category A position requiring immunization and screening for certain diseases as outlined in the NSW Health OASV Policy.