Child Protection Chair

 Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.

“Practice with children and families in need of help and protection is strong, resulting in positive experiences and improved lives for most children – Ofsted 2023”.

The Council, its staff, and partners, were delighted in February 2023, 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.

Our established family engagement group, FL.A.RE (Family Learning, Advocacy & Restorative Engagement), and children in care forums Positive Journeys, Positive Journeys Seniors and Bexley’s Young Director support us with practice development and delivery. Front line practitioners have the opportunity to learn from our children, young people and families, and be part of this work.

We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to grow, develop and progress whatever stage of their careers they are at. We offer a comprehensive range of training and professional development opportunities including access to research, group and e-learning, coaching and group supervision. Practitioners are invited to contribute to our learning and development offer in Bexley and to enhance Continuing Professional Development, there is opportunity to co-design and deliver training if this is of interest. We invest in our staff so they can invest in the children, young people and families we support.

Here in Bexley, we recognise that our greatest asset is our workforce. Staff well-being is important to us, and you will have access to our weekly staff well-being drop in sessions, our Employee Assistance Programme and our corporate offer of emotional and physical well-being sessions.

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

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

An opportunity has arisen for a Child Protection Chair.  This is a statutory role, and you will perform a vital role in ensuring that children & Young people’s Child Protection plans are robust and delivered effectively.  We need ambitious and committed Child Protection Chair Children’s Social Care who are passionate about relationship-based practice with families.  You are going to lead the way with our frontline practitioners who are working with ‘signs of safety’, collaborating, and strengthening our families.  As a Child Protection Chair, you will be the critical link between your team and senior managers.  This role will be focused on influencing, encouraging, leading, and promoting good quality care plans for children.

We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document attached.

We invite candidates with substantial experience in CP and those with transferable skills, seeking a new challenge and aspiring to contribute to the development of innovative approaches that will enhance our service. 

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.

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

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.    

Use the ‘Apply for vacancy’ button.

Anticipated Interview Date: to be confirmed.

Please note that the system has a one-hour time limit. We would advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised and have your CV and/or Supporting statement ready to upload.

If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence.

Additional Information

As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on  recruitment@bexley.gov.uk

This role may be available as a development opportunity through secondment for the Council’s existing employees.  The Council’s Secondment Scheme can be found here. If this option is of interest, please contact the recruiting manager.