About us:

We’re Little Dreamers, Australia’s leading non-profit organisation working with Young Carers around the country.

A Young Carer is anyone under the age of 25 who currently provides, or intends to provide, care in their family for a parent or sibling who has a chronic illness, mental illness, disability or addiction.

Founded in 2009 by a Young Carer, we love building and delivering high quality programs that create deep and meaningful impact in the lives of young people providing care in their families. And we’re pretty good at it too. To date, we have supported over 5,000 Young Carers, we deliver eight core programs alongside ad hoc supports, advocacy and community awareness campaigns. We have strong corporate partnership and funding relationships and have raised over $5 million to improve the quality of life for Young Carers around Australia. We have even received recognition from Queen Elizabeth II and have been named as an internationally best practice organisation for Young Carer support.

Our team is made up of 50 incredible humans working across VIC, NSW, QLD and SA. We are humble, hungry and kind and work hard to reach our goals. We believe in a world where every single Young Carer is supported by someone or something by 2030. Sounds fun right?!

By joining the Dream Team, you will play an integral part in supporting young people who often miss out on having a childhood.

A bit about the role:

As a Young Carer Counsellor, you’ll be the key support person for Young Carers participating in Counselling in key locations across our delivery area (QLD and parts of NSW). Each day will include completing intakes and Carer Stars with Young Carers, delivering counselling sessions, both individual and group, in-person with Young Carers and the coordination and running of teen overnight camps within your catchment area.

As a Young Carer Counsellor, you will provide short-term client focussed counselling and support services to Young Carers. This role will engage with Young Carers face to face, and complete intakes either over the phone, online or in-person. Counsellors will also play a key role in networking with other service providers in the region.

If you worked here this past month, here are some things you might have been involved in:

Over the past month, you would’ve been involved in many areas of the organisation, including intake and registration, counselling and program delivery, session management and administration, as well as data analysis, reporting, and community engagement. Your responsibilities included ensuring eligibility, conducting risk assessments, providing client-centred counselling, organising group sessions, communicating with participants and their families, inputting data, and building strong community relationships. You also played a vital role in empowering Young Carers and enhancing the effectiveness of our programs through various tasks aimed at providing support and fostering connections within the community.

Let’s talk about you!

If you hold a qualification in social work or counselling, have at least three years of direct service provision experience, and are accredited within a relevant Australian professional association, such as the Australian Counselling Association or the Australian Association of Social Workers, then you're in the right place. Your expertise in counselling young people using Rogerian and Cognitive Behavioural Therapies, coupled with your experience in designing and evaluating group counselling programs, will be invaluable to this role. In addition, your understanding of the caring role and evidence-based carer supports, as well as your ability to coordinate responsive individualised supports for Young Carers will make you a perfect fit. If you also bring organisational and interpersonal skills, along with desirable qualities like lived experience as a Young Carer and knowledge of the not-for-profit sector, then we're eager to welcome you aboard!

Why you should work with us:

Each day that you come to work you are changing a life. The more that Little Dreamers grows, the more impact we have and you’re a key part of that. We think that’s a pretty top perk, but we don’t stop there…

Little Dreamers is a growing not-for-profit organisation with start-up vibes. What does this mean in practice? If you have an idea you want to pitch that positively impacts Young Carers or our team that supports them, let’s make it happen. We’re all ears! You also get access to salary packaging (more tax-free income in your pocket? What’s better than that!). Finally, we care as much about you as we do about our Young Carers. The Little Dreamers team is a family and we offer flexible working and regular team bonding events.

What’s the salary like?

All of our salaries align to the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Award. In practice, this means that all of our Job Ads will have a salary range and Award alignment and the rest depends on your experience. The Young Carer Counsellor role aligns with SCHADS Award Level 4.3.

On top of the normal perks like annual leave, you will also have access to an additional 10 days of paid Carers Leave, generous parental leave, salary packaging, individual training and development budgets and a whole bunch of other things. Oh, did we mention that there is always some kind of confetti in the office? It’s a pretty happy vibe.