Advertised from 27 August 2025

Role

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a pioneering project supported by the Highland Community Planning Partnership’s Whole Family Wellbeing Programme.

Drummond School is a free-standing special school with over one hundred children with a wide range of highly complex health, medical and communication needs. Families and professionals have identified a need to ensure that the interface between families, their communities, school and medical care is well co-ordinated and communicated to ensure outcomes for the children are as positive as possible and the needs of the whole family are met wherever possible at the earliest stage.

The Family Links Worker will work alongside a ‘Family Health Worker’ (role title TBC) and existing designated support including Educational Psychology within Drummond School supporting families as:

• A dedicated resource to support families of Drummond School to enable and facilitate access to universal health and community supports for the whole family at the earliest point of need.
• Developing a whole family approach by working together, linking the Child’s Plan process to the needs of the whole family, co-ordinating and linking universal
• services and communities with specialist health care where necessary.
• Improve support and confidence in the school environment to meet the health needs of the children, by becoming part of the Drummond School community.

About Thriving Families

Our charity (previously known as Chip+) has been supporting families in the Highlands for over three decades. Our goal is to be the ‘go to’ organisation known for improving the lives of families in the Highlands by giving them confidence, empowering them to know their rights, know what questions to ask and have their voices heard.

We are currently commissioned to provide an independent information, advice, and support service for families with children (up to age 25) with additional support needs, and the professionals working with them. An additional support need is anything which means a child needs more, or different, support to another child the same age to make the most of their lives.

Purpose of role

The Family Links Worker will be a bridge between home and school, supporting families to overcome challenges to both well-being and learning and enabling children and young people to flourish in school and beyond.

It is recognised that there is a range of potentially beneficial outcomes for children and young people from building closer partnerships between schools and families and supporting all family members to address both practical and emotional issues.

Support provided to families will be flexible and responsive to the needs of families and individual family members. It will be available to families for as long as they need it.

Application notes

An application pack is available for download below.

Closing date: Sunday 28 September 2025 (midnight)

Provisional interview date: w/c 6 October 2025, in person interviews planned with MS Teams option if required e.g. due to adverse weather conditions.

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