Senior Practitioner – Children In Care

Senior Practitioner – Children in Care

Salary: £45,441 - £49,498 + £4k market Supplement (all will be pro-rota depending on hours worked)

Location: Civic Office

Are you an inspirational and child-centred social worker? Do you have an interest in developing long-term relationships with children and young people in Care? Are you passionate about improving your direct work skills and working with children, young people, foster carers and their families to make positive plans of permanency?

As a Senior Practitioner you will play a crucial part in the implementation of statutory responsibilities for our Children in Care, acting as a source of knowledge and experience for all team members and utilising your skills to work towards best outcomes for Children in Care. 

Within the Children in Care Team in Milton Keynes we have a real systemic way of working with children and young people, our visits are written in a narrative way to children and young people and this puts them at the heart of our practice. We have a team that consists of social workers, social work assistants and we work very closely with LAC nurses, primary mental health worker and our colleagues in the Virtual School. The nature of the work does mean travelling both locally and to places at a distance.

As a team we are very passionate about learning and self-development; we meet to discuss as a team every two weeks, where a member of the team presents an idea, model, practice tool or anything of their choosing. This active way of team and self-development promotes a real sense of togetherness and partnership within the team.

We offer a £4000 market supplement (pro rata), excellent training and career progression opportunities, flexible working including homeworking for up to 2 days a week (full time equivalent) and a suite of IT equipment to enable you to do your job effectively. Support with career progression and access to clinical supervision is provided to all employees.

We encourage and warmly welcome applications from social workers in all disciplines such as Adult Social Care and Mental Health Services.

Role Responsibilities

Chairing multi-disciplinary meetings and working closely with other agencies/professionals to complete assessments and formulate child centred care plans.

Completing annual Children and Family Assessments on each case to ensure that the care plan for the child/young person is reviewed. 

Ensuring that children have all of their day-to-day care needs met and fully understand their care story. This will be through the provision of direct work/life story work and multi-agency working with other professionals. 

Managing a caseload of up to 20 children with children subject to Care Orders, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, Placed with Parents and children subject to Placement Orders. 

Working as part of a team to share knowledge, develop team skills and contribute to the overall development of the team.

Ideal Candidate

Work closely with the Deputy Team Manager, Team Manager and colleagues to provide the leadership, management, support and training necessary to help social workers, social work assistants and social work professionals fulfil their role.

You will be an experienced and high performing Senior Social Work professional holding case work responsibility for the most demanding and complex cases assigned to the team.

The role holder will develop and maintain positive and influential working relationships with team members in order to fulfil the role of supervisor, mentor, coach and trainer.

The role holder will work with a range of colleagues from across the Council and partners, and chair as appropriate a range of professionals’ meetings and decision-making forums.

You will be the allocated Social Worker for children and young people who have care plans of long-term foster care, adoption or permanency through kinship care. It is essential that you have a driving license and a car available for work purposes. 

Contract Details: Permanent full time

Foster Carers

We’re looking for local families to foster MK children and we can help you every step of the way.

The fostering team at Milton Keynes City Council are in need of more local carers to care for Milton Keynes children to keep them in their local community, keeping their schooling, friends and family as consistent as possible as currently a significant number are placed outside of Milton Keynes with Independent Fostering Agencies meaning they are leaving everything they know behind.

If you’re over 21, have a spare room and can offer a safe, happy and supportive home to a child or young person, please get in touch.

Benefits:

• Competitive rates of pay
• Regular supervision and support
• 24/7 duty number
• We place with our carers first
• Ongoing training
• Additional financial incentives
• Access to local fostering groups
• Membership of the Fostering Network
• Our foster carer mentor scheme
• Access to clinical supervision
• Blue Light Card - Employees working within Social Care can qualify for a range of discounts from national retailers to local businesses in a wide range of categories including holidays, cars, days out, fashion, gifts, insurance, phones and much more.
• Childrens social worker is in the same building as the supervising social worker so better communication between teams.

To find out more please contact us on the below.

Website: www.mkcounciljobs.org.uk/foster

Tel: 01908 253206

Email: fosteringrecruitment@milton-keynes.gov.uk