Senior Social Worker - Children's - Intervention

Job Description

SENIOR SOCIAL WORKER – CHILDREN’S

SAFEGUARDING AND INTERVENTION SERVICE

£54,083 - £57,116 (includes market supplement)

Hybrid role – Newham Dockside E16 2QU

Closing date: 01/04/2023 at 23:59 - please apply ASAP as we may interview suitable applicants before the closing date

Job Description

WE ARE NEWHAM

We’re a vibrant, dynamic, culturally rich London Borough with a young population and limitless potential. We’re a challenging yet rewarding place to practise social work, with the networks in place to enable you to be the best Social Worker you can be and make a real difference to our children and their families. Our social care services were rated to be GOOD overall by Ofsted, with leadership rated as OUTSTANDING, but we have not stopped striving to be better.

We’ve been working tirelessly to establish a Centre of Excellence for Children’s Services through investment, co-production and by continuously developing our 'Circles of Support' practice model; centring on systemic and restorative practice and a specialist support offer for our practitioners. 

Ofsted described Newham as having a positive culture of learning and development and we always try to develop talent in-house. We promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023 alone, and have put 46 practitioners through further education since 2020. We value your development and at Newham career progression is reality for many. 

We understand that social work can be a challenging yet ultimately very rewarding profession that makes demands of you personally and professionally. In Newham we value your wellbeing and ensure that you have the support needed for a better work/life balance through a remote working offer when you are not visiting your children and families, a pleasant, modern office space for when you are in the office, a flexible working policy where all requests are considered, and a clinical offer to support you to do your best work. 

Read more about practising with Newham and our work here

ABOUT THE JOB

Senior Social Workers (SSWs) have a vital case holding role delivering high quality interventions to best serve our children and families. We have 3 intervention services, with service consisting of 4 teams of 5 Social Workers and 1 smaller team led by an Assistant Team Manager. Our large workforce is intended to keep caseloads manageable, allowing Social Workers time to work with families with CiN or CP plans. Court work is now handled largely by our Children in Care service, but experience in this area is still very useful in Safeguarding and Intervention.

We value our Senior Social Workers and understand the importance of supporting your learning, development and ambition, as well as your wellbeing. With this in mind, in the S&I Service we recognise the rewards as well as the challenges that the nature of the work brings. We have a bespoke offer through our very own clinical service, and our embedded systemic family psychotherapist assists with interventions where required. SSWs in intervention may also be assisted by Practice Development Social Workers and a contextual safeguarding service that support Social Workers with complex cases and use joint-thinking to reach positive outcomes for families. We’ve worked hard to provide a supportive environment where systemic, restorative practice can flourish.

ABOUT YOU

You have at least 3 years’ post qualified experience and an understanding of working effectively within a diverse, urban community at a Borough with a similar profile as Newham. You share our ambition and energy in embracing new ways of working. You have high working standards and are conscious of your own professional development and that of those around you, especially less experienced and student Social Workers starting out on their social work careers. You are always open to learning and to helping others learn so that children and families can benefit from our best practice. You have experience working with families at various stages of CiN and CP plans, and will be able to comfortably discuss outcomes you’ve achieved for familes if taken forward to interview.

We’re looking for people who have a genuine interest in a restorative, relationship based practice model drawing on systemic thinking to inform your approach to building effective relationships with children, families and communities. 

You are a qualified Social Worker who is registered with Social Work England.

WHY WORK WITH US?

We’ve been working hard to make Newham a great place to practise social work.

• We’re a GOOD local authority focused on reaching excellence.
• Ofsted graded our senior leadership as OUTSTANDING.
• We offer genuinely flexible/hybrid working as long as children and families are supported.
• Stability: 100% of our Service Managers and 71% of Team Managers are permanent.
• Our firmly established practice model, Circles of Support, was recently nominated for the prestigious MJ Award for Innovation in Children’s Services and allows systemic, restorative practice to flourish.
• Career progression; we promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023.
• Social Care Academy – 47 Social Workers have studied for systemic higher education with us since 2020. Our Academy offer received significant praise from Ofsted.
• A competitive package for Senior Social workers of up to £57,116.
• Oyster card/parking permit for business use.
• Wellbeing service, leisure and discount benefits (Council scheme).
• Travel season ticket loan, cycle scheme, Local Authority pension.

TO APPLY

To apply please submit your CV and a supporting statement (1-2 sides of A4) through our online recruitment portal. 

Shortlisting decisions will be based on candidates' relevant experience and on candidates' suitability for the role in line with the person specification, as described in their supporting statement and CV.

Closing date: 01/04/2023 at 23:59 – please apply ASAP as we may interview suitable applicants before the closing date

Interviews: ASAP

If you have any questions about the recruitment process or want to discuss joining Newham Children’s Services with one of our managers, please contact our Recruitment Team.

Additional Information

We are committed to creating an inclusive, anti-racist environment for all. When you apply for a job at Newham, your application is considered on its merits regardless of your age, disability, ethnicity, faith, gender identity or sexual orientation. If you share our vision and values, and you bring the experience and skills we need, that’s all that matters to us.

The London Borough of Newham has important responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. If you are appointed to a job that involves working with these groups, you may be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Please attach your supporting statement, explaining in no more than x2 A4 sides why and how you meet the criteria for this role.

We practice anonymised recruitment. Please ensure that you remove all personal information from any documents that you upload.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.

The London Borough of Newham is located only 5 miles east of London. It is well positioned with access to all major networks in London and the south east.  It is well connected  by public transport with, bus, tube and DLR. When the Crossrail service opens it will call at Custom House close to our council offices and also Stratford station and from there to central London. The London City Airport which serves major European cities is located at Royal Albert Dock. Newham has the youngest overall population in the country. It was one of the six host boroughs for the 2012 Summer Olympics and contains most of the Olympic Park including the London Stadium. It has a thriving arts quarter with the Theatre Royal Stratford East offering excellent entertainment for all the family. There is the University of East London which has two campuses in Newham, one in Stratford and another next to the regenerated Royal Albert Dock. It also has a large Westfield shopping Centre in Stratford which has all the major retailers there. 

Newham has a large housing regeneration programme that will build over 1,000 new council homes by 2022.