Starting up as a freelance family support worker

[Sheinspires]

Hi all hoping someone can help me. I have been employed as a family support worker for 4 years now and have always loved working with families. I have a lifetimes worth of personal experiences also. Unfortunately I feel quite restricted in the amount of support I can provide to families and want to set up on my own now. I am unsure how to go about it in terms of gaining referrals, where to advertise etc. Hoping someone can help.....please

Who would pay you? This tends to be a public/voluntary sector job.

Ho will y

You'd have to think first about who would pay your wages:
Are you looking at families themselves paying? So you'd be a consultant advertising things like sleep/behaviour/eating/toilet training support. In this case you'd need to put together a "menu" of services then source places to advertise. Start small maybe alongside your job and consider doing a few free trial runs with friends or family to build up the invaluable word of mouth contact.

If you're looking for external support for a family in crisis then you'll need good contacts. Either the local authority (some places do pay for freelance but you'd have to ask around and be willing to approach several local authorities) or you could try making links with charities and see if they would consider funding you.
Again, you'd need a portfolio so I'd suggest you spread the word amongst friends and family and complete several quite structured support interventions. Everybody needs to know that they're getting value for money these days so you need a clear outcome EG to create a daily routine that helps the children to calm down. A timescale Eg daily visits for two weeks with weekly follow up for six weeks after that.
Then a clear account of what you did and what the result has been, with evidence Eg.
Both children's grades have risen from this to this, school report that.., parents say that all the family are sleeping at least eight hours a night. That sort of thing.
Good luck!