“Bexley is a safe and supportive place to work with highly creative work undertaken by a skilled and well supported workforce – Ofsted 2018”

The Council, its staff and partners, were delighted in August last year when Ofsted judged the overall effectiveness of children’s social care services to be ‘outstanding’!  We were especially pleased that our investment in frontline practitioners and managers was recognised. We have been working for three years to create an environment where social workers can do the work they came into the profession to do - to support and help families to stay together where this is in children’s best interests and it is safe enough for this to happen.

Ofsted judged that we provide strong management oversight of practice, that we have a well – embedded practice framework to enable meaningful family focused help, that we offer clear progress in career pathways, a talent management scheme and a nurturing environment to enable social work to flourish. We believe deeply in relationship based practice and ‘Signs of Safety’ is the vehicle enabling us to do this respectfully and in collaboration with the people we are trying to help.

We are seeking to recruit an independent chair for our fostering panel. We are investing strongly in its fostering provision with a target to significantly increase the number of looked after children placed with in-house foster carers. The role of the Chair is crucial to our success in improving outcomes for Looked After Children.

We are seeking to appoint a competent and accomplished professional with the ability to ensure that the panel functions within a clear anti-discriminatory framework. You will need to be able to demonstrate expertise in childcare planning and child development with a detailed and up to date knowledge of the legislative framework for Fostering and a comprehensive understanding of the national standards and current good practice initiatives. The suitable candidate must have excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills and be able to put prospective and approved foster carers at ease whilst promoting sound and responsible decision-making.

We currently operate one to two panels a month and considers fostering, connected persons approvals. In addition to chairing the Fostering Panel there will be Panel Chair responsibilities and at least one training day during the year. The Chair will be expected to be available for at least 80% of panel meetings.

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

Your Application:

• Closing Date for your application: 18 June 2019
• Please visit https://jobs.bexley.gov.uk/wrlive to find out more and apply.  CVs will not be accepted unless they are submitted with a completed application form.

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.