Forensic Social Worker

Forensic Social Worker 

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Social Worker within the Secure & SPLD Division within Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.  We are looking to recruit a dynamic and skilled Social Worker into a band 6 Forensic Social work post at Ashworth High Secure Hospital.  We are keen to consider applicants from different practice areas of social work with transferable skills and will support professional development in Forensic Social work practice. 

Main duties of the job

Ashworth Social Work Department provides a service to patients, their families and carers and routinely works in collaboration with them, MDT colleagues and external stakeholders from the point of pre-admission to discharge. The service strives to deliver the Trust’s vision of Perfect and Trauma informed care to promote recovery and support service users to move on and manage risk.  

Social care activities range from pre-admission referral assessments, Mental Health Review Tribunal work, Safeguarding Strategy & Section 42 enquiries, Social Supervision, Discharge Coordination, Victim Communication & Liaison, MAPPA, Appropriate Adult (PACE), Care Reviews & Discharge Planning, CPA (Care Programme Approach), CTR (Care & Treatment Reviews) and Social History reports.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will be an active member of a multi-disciplinary team and will bring the social care perspective to service planning meetings and individualised care planning. The role involves providing case management to a defined caseload within the CPA framework and working collaboratively with multidisciplinary colleagues to assess needs and risks within a forensic patient population.  You will provide a professional social work service to patients, their families and carers and routinely liaise with external stakeholders from the point of admission to discharge. 

The successful candidate will have the ability to deliver an efficient and high quality social care service, have well developed assessment and analytical skills alongside effective interpersonal, communication and organisational skills.

You must have good knowledge of the key relevant Health & Social Care and Criminal Justice legislation to work in a forensic setting as well as a good knowledge around safeguarding frameworks. You should have well developed report writing skills as routinely you will be required to complete mental health legislation reports for the Ministry of Justice along with Manager’s Hearings and Tribunals alongside assessment reports for admission and discharge.

 Person specification Qualifications Essential criteria

• Qualified Social Worker with current registration and professional relevant qualification recognised for the purposes of HCPC registration i.e. Dip SW, CSS, CQSW and Degree in Social Work.

Desirable criteria

• Approved Mental Health Professional Qualification
• Qualifications relating to the Mental Capacity Act, e.g., Best Interest Assessor
• Practice Educator qualification 1 & 2 (PEPS).
• Masters Degree (MSW) or Postgraduate (PGDipSW)

Knowledge / Experience Essential criteria

• Suitable post qualifying experience as a Social Worker
• Good working knowledge of legislative guidance and policy e.g., Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act, Care Act, Human Rights Act and criminal justice frameworks e.g., MAPPA, Victim Liaison, MARAC and Carers’ Rights.
• Knowledge and application of professional standards, codes of conduct and Social Work England standards of proficiency and Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF).
• Good working understanding of Information Governance, Data Protection and confidentiality.
• Ability to assess and manage complex cases in a multidisciplinary team setting.
• Skilled at assessing and implementing risk management frameworks
• Skilled at assessing and promoting the involvement of people in developing their own care/ support plans using a strengths and asset-based approach.
• Experience of working with service users with mental disorders and/or learning disabilities.
• Experience of multidisciplinary team working and promoting social work/social care.
• Experience of presenting reports in formal setting, e.g., Courts, Mental Health Tribunals, Safeguarding Strategy.
• Experience in working with families, Experience of child and adult safeguarding

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with forensic service users.
• Experience of supervising others.

Values Essential criteria

• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Change oriented

Skills Essential criteria

• To be able to practice safely and effectively within scope of practice.
• To be able to practice within the legal and ethical boundaries of Social Work profession.
• Understand the key concepts of the knowledge base relevant to Social Work profession
• Be able to draw on appropriate knowledge and skills to inform practice.
• Develop written documents including report writing relevant for practice.
• An ability to manage time, prioritise work and meet deadlines.
• To be able to practice as an autonomous professional.
• To be able to communicate effectively.
• To be able to build compassionate and effective relationships
• To be able to maintain records appropriate.
• Interpersonal skills and resilience to manage complex clinical case work.

We celebrate diversity and promote equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from BAME, disabled and LGBT people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust’s guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence.  All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs. Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please contact the recruitment team to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team is able to prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.