Senior Practitioner – LAC

Description

Senior Practitioner – Looked After Children & Permanence

Management Grouping: Children’s Services

Location: Bexleyheath

Salary: £46,467 - £52,698 pa (Inclusive of Choices benefit of £2,598 pa)

Contract: Permanent /36 hours per week

Closing Date: 21 May 2023

Job Reference: CSC0000506

“Bexley is a safe and supportive place to work with highly creative work undertaken by a skilled and well supported workforce – Ofsted 2018”

The Council, its staff and partners, were delighted in August 2018, when Ofsted judged the overall effectiveness of children’s social care services to be ‘outstanding’! We were especially pleased that our investment in frontline practitioners and managers was recognised. We have been working hard to create an environment where social workers can do the work they came into the profession to do - to support and help families to stay together where this is in children’s best interests and it is safe enough for this to happen.

Ofsted judged that we provide strong management oversight of practice, that we have a well – embedded practice framework to enable meaningful family focused help, that we offer clear progress in career pathways, a talent management scheme and a nurturing environment to enable social work to flourish. We believe deeply in relationship based practice and ‘Signs of Safety’ is the vehicle enabling us to do this respectfully and in collaboration with the people we are trying to help.

If this sounds exciting and reassuring, we want you to get in touch with us. Our workforce is stable with over 90% permanent staff, but we are always looking for practitioners wanting to come and practice confidently as part of our team making a difference for families and children.

We will invest in you in return for your investment in our families and children.

Do you think you have what it takes to join our team of excellent and dedicated social work professionals?

Looked After Children and Permanence Service

This service has 3 teams with responsibility for all looked after children, care proceedings and young people who we are helping prepare to leave our care or move into our dedicated Leaving Care Service. Wherever possible we support young people to return home to their family and securing permanence for young people is central to the work we do. As such you will work closely with our adoption and fostering teams. The allocated social worker is responsible for working with a range of partners to secure the best possible outcomes for our looked after children. We have an active Signs of Safety Implementation group and we will support and encourage you to work creatively in order to secure positive outcomes for young people. We are passionate about the work we do and if you want excellent support and supervision and if you care as much as we do about supporting the aspirations of looked after young people then this is the service for you.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service

Make Social Work at Bexley a profession that is yours to own and in return we can offer you:

• An excellent working environment at our fantastic offices
• Professional supervision
• Mentoring/coaching
• Opportunities for flexible working with excellent ICT facilities
• Bexley has a flexible and generous package to support you moving to work in Bexley. We will pay up to £8k which you can use as you wish, e.g. to pay a deposit or mortgage, to meet housing costs, fees and other expenses.
• Career progression pathways for training and continuous professional development
• Signs of Safety Training and the opportunity to become an SOS Practice Lead
• Opportunity to engage in our Aspiring Leaders Programme
• Reimbursement of Social Work England subscription
• Our Choices Benefits include a lease car or cash options to the value of £2,598 per annum
• Excellent local government pension scheme
• 31 days annual leave per year (plus bank holidays)
• MyChoice Staff Benefit Scheme – Includes cycle to work scheme, access to high street shopping vouchers and online discount codes.
• Annual Leave Purchase Scheme

View more about our employment deal here.

Your Application:

• Closing Date for your application: 21/05/2023
• CVs will not be accepted unless they are submitted with a completed application form.

This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.