Team Manager

Role Responsibility

Team Manager in West Kent Children in Care Service (KR12)

Due to retirement, an exciting opportunity has become available within the West Kent Children In Care Team for a Team Manager. 

We offer a competitive basic salary between £49,522 and £57,712 dependant on your experience (plus £3,000pa retention scheme & £2000 car allowance). There is therefore the potential to earn up to £62,712 per year. In addition, there is a £4,000 Golden Hello (subject to eligibility) & up to £8,000 relocation package (subject to eligibility) and excellent LA pension scheme.

We also offer a staff benefits package, excellent career development and training that comes from working for an authority as large as Kent County Council.

Do you have the leadership skills, safeguarding knowledge and a proven track record of delivering excellent outcomes for children and young people that we are looking for?

About the role

We have a rare vacancy in one of the 5 teams for a Team Manager within West Kent Children in Care Service, based at Worrall House in Kings Hill, West Malling. West Kent covers the districts of Sevenoaks, Swanley, Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge & Malling and Maidstone. This is a hybrid working role offering you the opportunity of a good work-home life balance.

Leading a close-knit team of 5/6 social workers, you will be a champion of social work values, delivering and improving services and outcomes for children and young people. Your day to day support and high-quality caseload supervision will ensure your team can meet the complex and changing demands of the service, as well as enable their ongoing development. Working in partnership with a broad range of agencies, you will contribute to the development of Children’s Social Work Services procedures and policies. Advising on commissioning strategies, you will ensure that services are developed and accessible to all children, young people and families needing support, protection and intervention.
About you

You will need to be Social Work England registered with a Social Work degree (Dip SW or equivalent social work degree). You should have extensive post qualification experience, including experience of supervising staff and in depth knowledge of legislation, policy and practice relating to Children as well as have a good understanding of social work theories and how they are applied to the Kent Practice Framework.

You will have either management experience or specialist and extensive knowledge of this particular service user group. This experience should include; children’s safeguarding processes, working with children in care inc. LAC procedures, extensive experience in care proceedings & adoption, supervision, budget management, and joint working with partners in the statutory, private and voluntary sectors.

You should be confident in your ability to lead and develop a team. You will have the expertise needed to contribute to practice and policy development. You will need to demonstrate excellent managerial skills and be able to support and challenge professionals effectively.

About us

We want the best for the children of Kent, and this can only be delivered as a team effort with everyone playing their part. So, we are creating a culture that fosters excellence and collaboration – a place where social workers are empowered to be creative and share ideas and advice. With Ofsted rating our services as “Outstanding,” Kent County Council’s Children’s Social Work Services teams are working together, stronger than ever, to deliver strengthened services and improved outcomes.

Kent is a large and diverse county, offering a broad range of challenges and opportunities to support children and young people from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances.

This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English/Welsh sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure application to the Disclosure and Barring service and registration as a qualified Social Worker with Social Work England.