The Role

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.

We are recruiting to a number of posts following the successful promotion of staff within Bexley Children’s Social Care

If you are interested in a return to relationship-based social work come and join our Children’s Social Care service at the London Borough of Bexley. 

Bexley has adopted Signs of Safety as it’s practice model.  This strengths and solution focused ethos of working with families and colleagues is threaded throughout all areas of Children’s Social Care.  As part of your role you will continue to work with and embed this practice framework.  The framework is having a positive impact practice development, effective engagement with families, staff morale, and motivation across the service.

We are committed to building a strong reflective learning culture which enables good relationship based practice to thrive.  To achieve this we are looking for resilient, experienced professionals who will drive an ever more relentless focus on high quality experiences for families enabled by solid and dedicated social work.  You will bring vision, passion, leadership skills and an operational expertise that will help to facilitate the changes that we are ready to make.

We need ambitious Senior Practitioners who are going to lead the way in embedding good quality social work practice and deliver the best outcomes for our children.  You will also be committed to relationship based social work, family group conferences and signs of safety practice.  We are looking for experienced practitioners who can evidence how learning has been applied in their practice; and with an excellent track record of improving the lives of children. 

The aim and purpose of Bexley’s Adoption and Permanency Service is to meet the needs of all the children who live within our community and require an alternative permanent family. The Team works effectively with other social work teams, voluntary agencies and other statutory authorities to ensure the best outcomes for children.

We are looking to appoint an experienced Senior Practitioner to assess and support adopters and family find for children placed for adoption and to be involved in a range of other adoption activities.

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a high achieving adoption team.

You will possess excellent communication and report writing skills, be able to demonstrate excellent knowledge of child care and adoption legislation.

Successful candidates will require registration as a qualified Social Worker with the Health Care Professionals Council (HCPC) and be able to demonstrate your capabilities against the Social Work Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF).

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

If you would like to know more about the role then please contact Pam Hunt, Team Manager on 0203 045 3222.

In return for an excellent salary and benefits package we can offer you:

·         An excellent working environment at our fantastic new offices

·         Workable caseloads

·         High number of permanent staff across the service

·         Professional supervision

·         Mentoring/coaching

·         Opportunities for flexible working with excellent ICT facilities

·         Access to an extensive learning & development offer including post graduate study

·         Identified pathways for training and continuous professional development

·         Signs of Safety Training and the opportunity to become an SOS Practice Lead

·         Opportunity to engage in our Aspiring Leadership Programme

Do you think you have what it takes to join our team of excellent and dedicated social work professionals?

What we offer:

• Our Choices Flexible Benefits Package includes lease car, and cash options to the value of £2,322 per annum
• A flexible and generous package to support you moving to work in Bexley.  We will pay up to £8k which you can use as you wish, e.g. to pay a deposit or mortgage, to meet housing costs, fees and other expenses.
• Reimbursement of HCPC subscription
• Career Average Revalued Earnings Pension Scheme
• Performance Related Pay
• 31 days annual leave plus Bank Holiday Entitlement
• Annual Leave Purchase Scheme
• MyChoice Staff Benefit Scheme – Includes Childcare Vouchers, Cycle to Work Scheme, access to high street shopping vouchers and online discount codes.

View more about our employment deal here.

Visit https://bexleysocialcarecareers.wordpress.com to find out more about what a career with the London Borough of Bexley would be like or come for an experience day.

Your Application:

• Closing Date for your application: 06/05/2019  
• Please visit https://jobs.bexley.gov.uk/wrlive to find out more and apply.  CVs will only be accepted if submitted with a completed application form.
• Anticipated interview date: 16/05/2019

This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. 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 sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.