Children and Young Peoples Link Worker at Sunderland Counselling Service
Contract Type: Fixed term
Role Type: Employment
Hours: Full or Part time
Application deadline:
Based: Sunderland
Salary: £31,04931,049 Pro Rata
Salary Type: Salary Scale
Location: Tyne and Wear
Role description: Project Support
Children and Young People’s Link Worker
Contract Type: Fixed term for one year
Contract Hours: 37.5 hours p/w
18.75 hours p/w
Salary: AfC Band 5 comparable (£31,049) Pro rata
Application deadline: 24th October 2025
Sunderland Counselling Service (SCS) is seeking to appoint link workers to work in our CYP Link Work service. The service will be set within a unique independent mental health charity, which is acknowledged for its contribution to the community by mental health professionals, health practitioners and local and regional voluntary and statutory agencies.
The post holder will respond to the unmet needs of children and young people in Sunderland and South Tyneside via the implementation of a CYP social prescribing model. The Link Worker will connect children and young people into a broad range of services and interventions in their local area in a timely and effective way, led by the wants and needs of the young person themselves.
This activity provides additional emotional, social and practical support to wrap around existing Primary Care and child and adolescent mental health services, to support young people while they are waiting for formal treatment, prevent deterioration, maximising treatment outcomes and support independence. It is NOT intended to operate as a crisis service or an alternative to crisis services, nor as a clinical intervention and would not take on care planning or case management functions which clearly must be provided by clinical staff.
To allow flexibility and to respond to client need, services may be delivered confidentially from home as well as from GP surgeries and other community venues in Sunderland and South Tyneside. The post holder will be called upon to use personal means of transport while engaged in the work of the service for which travel expenses will be available.
The post holder will be employed on a fixed term contract of one year which will be subject to a probationary period of 6 months. Continued employment is subject to obtaining ongoing project related funding.
Please use your application to tell us how your skills and experience align to the role. Sunderland Counselling Service may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) detection tools to identify whether an application has been completed using AI. We expect that AI may be used to enhance your application such as refining and clarifying your ideas and thoughts and checking for grammar and spelling. However, applications where AI has been used to invent or inflate your skills and experiences or create generic responses will be rejected. To verify you have written your application please add the following to the bottom of your application 'I confirm that the content of this application is my own work and has not been generated by artificial intelligence tools beyond basic editing or proofreading’.
If you have any questions about this role, please contact Alicia Harris (Senior Mental Health Link Worker) on 0191 514 7007.
Further information can be found below.
A copy of the job description for this role can be found at https://www.sunderlandcounselling.org.uk/vacancies/, alongside details on how to apply. Please note applications for this post must be submitted to office@sunderlandcounselling.org.uk by 11.59pm on 24th October 2025 alongside a completed equal opportunity and diversity form. Applications after this time will not be considered.
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