Principal Social Worker (Children)

Principal Social Worker (Children) 

How you'll make a difference

You will play a key role in effecting change and improvement in social work practice, taking a professional lead across  Children’s Services. You will have responsibility for supporting and advising on the quality of social work practice, providing challenge, support and training to practitioners, managers, elected members, social work students and newly qualified Social Workers. You will be able to be creative and innovative in your role and lead practitioners and managers towards great practice.

What will you be doing?

• This is an influential role within our children’s service and you will need to work closely with Service Manager colleagues across the Divisions, including relevant business support staff and managers.
• It will be key for you to provide expertise on all aspects of children’s Social Work practice; supporting and modelling best practice. 
• You will lead the development and implementation of agreed supervision standards and training and practice guidance, ensuring that all staff have a clear vision and understanding of “what good looks like” . You will work with colleagues to ensure that the systems in place support this. 
• You will be expected to support practice improvement where needed through joint work with the Service Manager Improvement and Service Directors; leading on specific pieces of work, ensuring that practice meets the required standard. 
• It will be your responsibility to lead and oversee excellent Social Work practice, supporting and developing the arrangements for excellent Social Work practice to flourish.
• As a key conduit, you will ensure staff views are heard by holding regular feedback meetings and ensuring staff opinions are fed back to the wider leadership team and the Service Directors, as well as representing these views on the Directorate Equality and Diversity Group. You will use this information to develop culturally competent policy and practice guidance within the Core Curriculum. You will be part of the wider audit and moderator group and will contribute thematic audits, peer reviews and Partners in Practice activities.
• You will contribute to the needs of the wider division supporting the work of the statutory Social Work service in Children’s Social Care and Preventative Services. 

What we need from you

• You will hold a recognised and relevant professional social work qualification e.g. DipSW, CQSW, CSS.   Registered with Social Work England (SWE)
• It is vital that you have senior leadership experience, be persuasive and engaging with the ability to lead, co-ordinate and plan a service
• You will possess expert knowledge in children’s services (knowing what “good” looks like) in addition to specific technical expertise in order to solve technical issues within children’s social care
• You will be able to confidently challenge poor practice wherever needed to secure good outcomes for the young people and families we support.

Please note that due to the nature of this role it is a requirement of employment that an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is obtained for this post.

How a career at South Gloucestershire Council is different

What’s special here is the strength of the team ethos. We are a relatively small local authority, so managers know staff well. They can plan their services to ensure teams have manageable caseloads and have effective supervision so feel supported to make decisions which are right for the children and young people they work with.

• We invest in the careers of our people and we are recognised for the quality, breadth and depth of our training and development offer, which helps our people make the greatest long-term difference in their work
• We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. Ensuring all our staff are given right skills, knowledge and support to recognise and respond effectively to potential abuse or neglect.
• We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted, and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities. 

Our teams at South Gloucestershire Council are making a real difference to the lives of people who live, work and learn here. 

• We're building and shaping communities which people are proud of.
• We're working with the most vulnerable in our community to help them achieve what they want in life 

We’re making a difference, be part of it! 

For more information, please contact Catherine Boyce via email catherine.boyce@southglos.gov.uk.

Job Description