Service Manager - Children Services

Your new company
Our vision is A Southend Where All Children Achieve Success. By joining Southend City Council as a Service Manager, you will be key in making our vision a reality for all children. You will be joining a service where we demonstrate with pride that:

• Children are at the heart of our work.
• We spend time getting to know each child and their story.
• We do what we say we\'re going to do.
• We work with the whole family.
• No matter what, we aim to make things better.

You will provide support to work to the highest standard using our model of practice, Restorative Practice, to deliver the vision.

Your new role
Are you an aspiring and passionate leader that demonstrates high support and high challenge (restorative practice) to achieve the best outcomes for our children and families in Southend-on-Sea?
Southend-on-Sea City Council is on a journey to develop services that showcase best practice and services, where our children and families co-produce and lead support they need. As part of the collaborative group, this means leaders, practitioners and managers in Southend celebrate effective and safe interventions that reduce risk and harm for children, where outcomes achieved alongside key partners underpin children at the centre of our support and where their voice jumps off of the page.
We are seeking permanent leaders in the areas of Safeguarding, Family Support and Protection; Children's Single Point of Contact and Children with Disabilities; Corporate Parenting and Fostering and Adoption that will lead and role model the behaviours we want others to follow.

• As a leader, you demonstrate and describe the high standards and expectations we want to achieve; you enable others and develop services and support.
• As a leader, you communicate and drive services successfully to ensure they are impactful and effective.
• Leading services and teams to share current practice and learning across services and form an integral part of the wider leadership group to showcase our achievements through performance and inspections
• With an in-depth knowledge of legislation and research in your profession, you can say and show what 'good' looks like, inspire others to achieve and celebrate success.

The role of Service Manager is pivotal in ensuring that staff are supported to deliver high quality services, so that families experience skilled, robust and creative relationship-based social work intervention. This is consistent with the Council's practice model and effects sustained change.
As the Service Manager, you will be responsible for the direct line management of up to 5 reports and maintaining oversight of quality and performance across their teams and practitioners.
You will join a group of Service Managers who provide strong peer support and who are creative in improving outcomes for children. Our most recent Ofsted inspection found that 'Social Workers experience an open, supportive management team and work in an environment where social work practice is developing and beginning to flourish' and you will also experience that if you join our teams.
The expectation is that you will be office-based 3 days a week. You will have the opportunity to engage in the Frontline Pathways Programme for Social Work Service Managers, to support your future career progression. In addition, you will have access to a leadership hub and management training for your role.

What you'll need to succeed
To be successful in this position, you must be able to work in the UK, have a recognised Social Work qualification and be registered with the Social Work England, ideally with post-graduate management and leadership qualifications, but this is not essential.
You must have experience of managing statutory children\'s social work, including both safeguarding and cared for children. Additional requirements include being able to analyse data and QA information to identify areas of practice that require improvement and make appropriate recommendations. Finally, you must be able to work collaboratively and possess first-class communication skills.

What you'll get in return
Pension:
Southend-on-Sea City Council provide membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for employees aged under 75. The LGPS is a generous scheme and provides you with a future income, independent of share prices and stock market fluctuations.
Leave Entitlements:
We offer our employees a generous leave entitlement from 25 days up to 32 days based on length of service (Continuous service). Southend-on-Sea City Council also offer a range of flexible working and family-friendly leave.
*We also offer paid time off to allow employees to undertake volunteering activities*
Here at Southend-on-Sea City Council we also offer our employees free access to a benefit portal that provides access to wellbeing support and a range of salary sacrifice schemes to help spread the cost of items, including:

• Bicycles, cars, electronics and gym membership.
• The portal also provides access to a range of discounts on products and services including retail, food shopping, travel, dining out and leisure activities.

What you need to do now
If you're interested in this role, click 'apply now' to forward an up-to-date copy of your CV, or call us now.
If this job isn\'t quite right for you, but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion about your career.

Hays EA is a trading division of Hays Specialist Recruitment Limited and acts as an employment agency for permanent recruitment and employment business for the supply of temporary workers. By applying for this job you accept the T&C's, Privacy Policy and Disclaimers which can be found at hays.co.uk