Leaving care (Local Offer for Care Leavers)

If you have received a leaving care service, you could become a care experienced sessional worker at the Council.

Sessional workers are employed on casual contracts.

This provides a range of opportunities for paid work.

The roles are excellent opportunities to gain work experience with South Tyneside Council.

How it works

Once employed as a sessional worker, opportunities are emailed out to you.

You can then express an interest in the role you want to take part in.

Depending on the role, there might be an informal interview or chat, or you might be given the role straight away.

You will be supervised by the manager of the team you are working in.

You can also keep in touch with the leaving care opportunities broker.

Where you will be based

Sessional workers are based in areas such as:

• leaving care
• connected carers
• participation
• SENDIASS
• commissioning

New opportunities are coming all the time, so there is something for everyone.

We are looking at areas where our sessional workers want to work, so that we can match opportunities to your skills, experience and interests.

Staff interviews

As a sessional worker, you can take part in staff interviews when new workers are being hired within social care.

A panel of sessional workers get together and ask applicants questions from a care experienced young person's view.

You will be able to offer your thoughts about who:

• made the best impression
• you think would be best to work with care experienced young people

Next steps

Being a sessional worker is excellent for your CV and job applications.

It provides lots of opportunities to learn new skills and gain new experiences.

Our current and previous sessional workers have a good record of progressing into further employment opportunities by doing sessional work.

Benefits 

Being a sessional worker helps to improve the service that we are able to offer our young people.

This is because you are able to share your own views with staff in leaving care services, and other Council teams and services. 

Being a sessional worker helps to raise the profile of care leavers across the Council and in the borough.

If you're interested in becoming a sessional worker

We usually hire new sessional workers once a year.

Ask your personal adviser if we are hiring, or you can get in touch with Alex Simpson, Opportunities Broker, at alex.simpson@southtyneside.gov.uk.