Young People and Families Practitioner

Salary

£34,434 - £39,152

Contractual hours

Basis

Fixed Hours

Package

We are pleased to offer a wide range of benefits to support you and your wellbeing. You can read about them on our Why work for us pages.

Date posted

10/06/2026

Job reference

REQ0001065

Are you a creative and motivated person looking to build meaningful relationships with young people within a well-established and skilled team? Are you looking to make a real difference by working in partnership with young people and their networks to reduce substance use and promote wellbeing? Are you looking for a rewarding, varied role where each day can offer diversity, challenge and success? Fixed term until 31st March 2027and likely to be extended Closing date: 5th July 2026

For an informal discussion, please contact ***email_hidden***

Job Introduction

This exciting post sits within our already well developed, professional and collaborative team, RU-Ok? This skilled and well-established team provides a vital service to young people and their families within the city by working directly with young people whose life is being affected by substance use and other concerns such as sexual health, mental health and exploitation.

We are looking to recruit motivated, reflective, creative practitioners who are committed to building strength-based relationships with young people. We are looking for people who enjoy working with adolescent aged young people and their families and who can use their skills and knowledge to co design harm reduction campaigns, interventions and service developments with the population of people the service supports.

RU-Ok? work in partnership with other teams in our service as well as community organisations to support a wide number of young people across the city.

You will need to be committed to playing a part in dismantling racist structures and challenging racial inequality and all forms of discrimination – this is a lead focus of BHCC Adolescent Service and something that each team within the service is actively working to address through individual and collective learning and development.

The role concentrates on "participation" and will work closely with young people to grow and develop both the RU-OK? offer and the wider offer of the Adolescent Service. You will take a lead in working collaboratively with young people who are experienced of working with RU-OK? to create vibrant and meaningful working relationships that can be utilised to expand our growth, knowledge, and service development. Working in collaboration with service experienced young people you will create a culture of learning and participation to bring about change for how other young people and families experience intervention around substance use and connected concerns such as exploitation and mental health.

The post holder will also work directly with young people and their networks to deliver evidenced-based intervention, as well as working with education settings and in partnership with other statuary and community agencies to deliver substance-use intervention. You will also work directly with parents and carers who need advice and support relating to their child’s substance use, this will include parents and carers for young people who are not themselves engaged with work around their substance use.

Our service is committed to ensuring equality of provision and we are proud to work within Brighton & Hove, which has pledged to be an anti-racist council.

You will have knowledge or experience of working with adolescents and/or families including experience and knowledge of risk assessment, safeguarding procedures and child development. For full details of essential criteria, please see attached job description and person specification.

Encouraging a diverse workforce

Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?

As a council, we want to:

• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe

For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

How to apply

Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates

We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional information

Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.