About HeartKids 

HeartKids is the only national not-for-profit organisation that supports and advocates for those impacted by congenital or childhood-onset heart disease (CHD), one of the leading causes of infant death in Australia. This includes babies, children, teens, adults, and their families and carers, as well as the health professionals who provide care for them. 

Our purpose is to make a real and lasting impact for the CHD community. We seek to give every child, teenager and adult in Australia impacted by CHD the best chance to live a long, healthy and fulfilling life. 

Our work is focused on the community as we support, inform and educate families and advocate for the CHD community.

Purpose of the position

This role will lead a project to develop and pilot a program/model of care aiming to improve teen and young adult with CHD’s ongoing engagement with health services and participating in their care. This will include improving loss to follow-up rates and re-engaging adults that may have been lost to care. 

Key requirements of the role

The development of a National Teen and Young Adult HeartKids Transition Program that addresses: 

• Establishing partnerships with primary care and hospitals to identify young adults who are lost to follow-up and reconnect them with specialist CHD care
• Providing tailored support, guidance and resources to patients and parents/carers with neurocognitive deficits and comorbidities that may impact ongoing engagement with care  
• Facilitating access to location-appropriate adult hospital information basics like introduction to clinicians, navigating the hospital, and tips for a smooth transition 
• Connecting young people with peer groups and other adolescents at the time of transfer, even those who are already embedded in transition programs 
• Facilitating parental and health professional access to parental education supports on how to guide their teen/young adult through transition to build self-efficacy and improve their self-management 
• Developing tools to assist teens and young adults like appointment checklists, cheat sheets and fact sheets 
• Providing support/referrals/information to key priority groups that are at higher risk of loss-to-care including those of lower socioeconomic status and regional and remote communities and those from a non-English speaking background and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• Working with existing HeartKids Support teams to embed the Program at a local level to ensure continuity of delivery 

Skills, qualifications and attributes

• Tertiary qualification in a social work/ nursing/ social services or similar related health care discipline 
• A background of working with young people in a health care setting, including an excellent understanding of the challenges young people face in transitioning from paediatric to adult care 
• Experience in paediatric or ACHD cardiology, care coordination, youth work highly desirable 
• A proven history of successful program design 
• Excellent organisational, administrative, planning, budget management and time management skills with a strong attention to detail
• Experience in working with priority populations especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities highly desirable 
• Proven ability to develop positive, effective and mutually beneficial working relationships with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders including clinicians, young people and their parents/carers  
• Self-directed, energetic and motivated to achieve agreed outcomes within a team environment
• A current National Police Criminal History Check and a current Working with Children Check
• A sense of humour, fun and inspiration

Benefits and perks

• Flexible working conditions including work from home option 
• Attractive salary with ability to salary sacrifice
• Make a real difference at work and have fun doing it

This is a part time, 0.6FTE fixed contract until March 2025.