Assistant Director For Quality And Practice (Principal Social Worker)

Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) is looking for a rare talent. 

Can you inspire the best possible social work and family support practice? 

Can you empower strengths based reflective practice discussions? 

Above all can you commit to making a real difference for children, young people and families in Northamptonshire? 

Come and work in an organisation that has a culture of support and kindness.

This is a new and exciting role with endless opportunities to make a difference. The role will be within our stable and experienced senior leadership team and reports directly to the Chief Executive.

The successful candidate will be responsible for providing professional leadership for social work across the organisation to shape, influence, guide and promote our social work practice ensuring that children and young people are at the heart of the decisions we make. They will be the voice for social work within the management team and outward facing to external stakeholders.

We are passionate about our ethos and want to recruit an ambassador for social work who advocates a culture where practice is valued, equality, diversity, equity and inclusion is embedded, and it is widely accepted that the service is a place where a diverse range of practitioners want to come and work and progress.
Our benefitsWe are committed to continuous improvement, building a skilled, knowledgeable, and flexible workforce alongside promoting innovation and creativity whilst keeping children, young people and families at the heart of all we do.

We really value our workforce and offer you a great benefits package including:

28 days’ annual leave, plus 8 Bank Holidays (pro rata for part time) and an additional 5 days, after 5 years
Local Government Pension Scheme plus immediate life cover (3 times your annual salary from day one) and ill-health protection.
Opportunity to purchase up to 25 days annual leave
Employee Assistance Programme - We have an employee support programme run by Health Assured, an independent, external organisation. Health Assured is available for you and your immediate family members, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and includes telephone counselling, legal advice, bereavement support and medical information.
Employee discounts with local and national retailers, days out, finance, health and beauty, travel and eating out plus lots more.
Flexible and family working arrangements including enhanced maternity benefits
A permanent, supportive and inclusive management team where you will be empowered to make good professional decisions
Extensive Learning & Development and career development opportunities
Free parking on site plus heavily subsidised town centre car parking scheme

What will you be doing?You will ensure the service upholds social work values and standards and supports practitioners, by offering positive challenge to decision makers where needed. You must maintain visible leadership across the social work and alternatively qualified workforce, being ready to offer advice on the most complex and high-risk situations. You will be an ambassador of strength-based practice and will lead an approach that is children and young people centred and community connected.

The role is responsible for ensuring plans are delivered to support the professional development of NCT’s workforce to further improve retention and recruitment.  This includes taking the lead in developing our relational practice model (rooted in a restorative, strengths-based approach to working with families) and embedding this approach in practice across the organisation.

You will develop and maintain strong relationships with partner agencies to enable a system-wide approach to safeguarding children.

The role will be responsible for the quality assurance strategy and framework and will lead the Quality and assurance of practice, ensuring the right governance is in place, identifying priorities for improvement and driving that improvement continuously forwards and ensuring that children are safeguarded at all times.  The role will support continuous professional development across the organisation as well as delivering specific statutory safeguarding functions. 

As a member of the senior leadership team you will be responsible for the effective leadership and management of NCT services, delivery of improved outcomes and the achievement of value for money.
About youYou will be an experienced, committed, and person-centred leader who is enthusiastic about developing and empowering the best social work practice.  Visible to the workforce and a real ambassador for creating an environment where people are empowered to learn develop, thrive and be outstanding practitioners.  

You must have a comprehensive knowledge of legislation, best practice and continuous professional development in Children’s services and have the drive and vision to embed this into your work within NCT. Alongside this you will have established relationships with key local and national forums and leaders, to ensure that you have the latest information and your knowledge is up to date. 

Having significant experience of leading children’s social work in a large and complex organisation, you will be passionate about improving the outcomes for the children and young people we support. 

Working in a fast-paced organisation on an improvement journey you will be an expert in change management and have the skills and knowledge to be able to adapt to this and bring colleagues on this exciting journey with you.

You will support quality assurance and professional development across NCT as well as delivering specific statutory safeguarding functions.

Working across the organisation and with partner organisations you will need to have outstanding communication skills and the ability to build strong relationships quickly with both internal and external partners. 

For an informal conversation about the role please email colin.foster@nctrust.co.uk and he will arrange a convenient time to call you.
About usNorthamptonshire Children’s Trust was established in November 2020 to deliver Children’s Services to the newly established North and West Northants County Councils. The Trust is wholly owned and funded but operationally independent from the Councils; this provides the organisation with unique opportunities to explore new ways of working and to be more agile and adaptable in its approach to service delivery. We are developing a culture that allows the very highest quality of professional practice to flourish and evolve, delivering at the cutting edge of new innovation.