Home Family Support Worker Resume template
Family Support Worker resume template
A clean starting structure with example content grounded in what family support workers actually do day to day, not generic filler. Download and replace the bracketed placeholders with your own details.
Which resume format should you use?
Reverse chronological
You have a steady work history. This is the format almost every recruiter and ATS expects by default.
Functional
You're changing fields or have gaps in your employment. Leads with skills rather than a job-by-job timeline.
Combination
You're early career or have worked consistently but for only a few employers. Blends a skills summary with a shorter chronological history.
This template uses the reverse chronological format: the one most family support workers should default to, since most Australian recruiters and ATS software expect it.
Professional summary
Family Support Worker with hands-on casework experience supporting parents, children and carers through hardship, family breakdown and child protection involvement. Builds practical, strengths-based support plans, coordinates referrals across housing, health, legal and financial services, and keeps clear case records that stand up to agency and funding review. Comfortable working alongside child protection, schools and community organisations under state and territory child safety frameworks.
Key skills
- Casework and client support
- Counselling and support work
- Strengths and risk assessment
- Family support and safety planning
- Referral and service navigation
- Trauma informed practice
- Culturally safe practice
- Community engagement
- Stakeholder management
- Microsoft Office
- Penelope case management
- Client Information Management System (CIMS)
- SharePoint
- Salesforce
Experience: example bullet points
- Managed a caseload of around 20 families at a time, completing strengths and risk assessments and reviewing each support plan at agreed intervals with the family present.
- Developed family support and safety plans with parents and carers that set out practical steps, who was responsible for each action and the date it would be reviewed, which lifted the number of families still engaged at the three month mark.
- Referred families to housing, health, legal and financial services and followed up on every referral, so people were not left to navigate waitlists and paperwork on their own.
- Kept case notes and outcome reports current in Penelope and CIMS, which cut the time needed to prepare reports for child protection and funding bodies from two days to a few hours.
- Ran a weekly parents group covering routines, budgeting and managing conflict, giving families a place to swap practical strategies and reducing after-hours calls to the team.
- Attended case conferences and care team meetings with schools, child protection and health services, representing the family's view and agreeing on shared actions.
- Escalated concerns under mandatory reporting requirements and documented the reasoning behind each decision so the record held up when reviewed.
- Worked with interpreters and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community services to make sure families could access support in a way that suited them.
Education
Typically entered through a Diploma of Community Services or Certificate IV in Community Services, with many workers also holding a Bachelor of Social Work, a Bachelor of Human Services or a related degree. Check eligibility for membership with the Australian Community Workers Association (ACWA) or, for social work graduates, the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).
Keywords an ATS is likely to scan for
Applicant tracking systems match your resume against terms in the job ad before a person ever sees it. Only include the ones that actually apply to your experience, but if a term below matches something you've done, use the same wording the job ad uses.
- Family Support Worker
- casework
- child protection
- mandatory reporting
- family support plan
- safety planning
- strengths based practice
- trauma informed practice
- culturally safe practice
- referral pathways
- Working with Children Check
- NDIS Worker Screening Check
- National Police Check
- First Aid Certificate
- Penelope
- CIMS
- Child Safe Standards
- case notes
- community services
Getting past ATS screening
- Match the specific skills, certifications and terms used in the job ad, not just your own wording for the same thing.
- Keep formatting simple: no tables, text boxes, columns, headers/footers or graphics. Parsers frequently drop content placed in these.
- Submit as .docx or PDF unless the job ad specifies otherwise.
- Use standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills) rather than creative alternatives.
- List your core skills and technical competencies in their own section so a keyword scan can find them instantly.
This is a starting point, not a guarantee of interviews. Tailor every bullet point to your own real experience and the specific job ad.