Social Work Assistant

Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.

Working in social care in Bexley is endlessly rewarding. As well as helping some of the most vulnerable people in our borough, we invest in looking after you and your career.

Part of that is offering excellent benefits, from competitive salaries and generous leave to flexible working and a wealth of health and wellness programmes.

As of February 2023, our Children’s Services have been judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted inspectors for the second time in a row.

They found that the service had a ‘clear strategic direction, strong partnerships and good political and corporate support’ allowing it to make a significant difference to children’s lives. Inspectors found that the service has a well-trained workforce that is improving the lives of children and families and that front-line workers feel safe and supported because of the quality of management oversight and decision-making.

Our practice is relationship-based, using the Signs of Safety framework.

Our approach to children’s social care. We believe:

At Bexley we use the ‘Signs of Safety’ model, which has been adopted as our practice framework and is in line with our ‘Bexley Values’. As with all practice frameworks, we also work within the framework of the Children Act (1989). The model is used across all of our services within Children’s Social Care and is being developed with our partner agencies.

The Signs of Safety framework is a way of working that puts children and families at the centre of practice with our underpinning ethos statement being ‘Nothing about us, without us’.

The Signs of Safety approach emphasises the need to foster open, honest and respectful relationships with families in a compassionate and respectful way. We facilitate ‘Family Network Meetings’ to support families with finding their own strengths within their networks that support the safety and wellbeing of their children.

The Signs of Safety incorporates a system whereby we obtain feedback from families to inform us about our practice and help us look at how we can continuously make improvements to our service.

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

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As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on recruitment@bexley.gov.uk.