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Head of Children in Care Provision

Employer
Derbyshire County Council
Location
Derbyshire
Salary
£52,999 - £58,310 per annum
Closing date
14 Jun 2020

A unique and exciting opportunity has arisen for a dynamic, ambitious and motivated Head of Service for Children in Care Provision, in Derbyshire’s Early Help and Safeguarding Children’s Specialist Services. This role brings together the supervisory responsibility and leadership for a number of services which directly contribute to improving outcomes for our children in care. The Children in Care provision consists of eleven residential homes, 7 non-disabled and 4 for disabled children, comprising a mixture of residential, short-breaks and The Outback, a countywide service to meet the needs of disabled children and their families, offering tailored support packages, such as parenting assessments and supervised family time; the countywide fostering service and whilst the majority of adoption work has now transferred to the new Regional Adoption Agency, Derbyshire has retained non-agency adoption and the birth family support elements of the service.

This role is pivotal in maintaining and developing our children in care provision, ensuring placement sufficiency and effective use of resources. The post requires strong strategic and operational leadership across the services and partnerships, in particular health, education and adult services; and significantly contributes to Derbyshire’s Corporate Parenting aspirations in ensuring that we act as good parents and that our children in care receive warm and inspirational parenting. To assist you in achieving this, you will have a team of experienced Operational Managers who are experts in their field, both residential and fostering; Heads of Service of children’s social work teams will also work closely with you, to promote a joined up approach that raises ambitions and outcomes, with and for, our children in care.

Derbyshire already has a strong fostering service with amazing foster carers and great staff and managers and is committed to continuous improvement of practice and service provision. Likewise over 80% of our in-house children’s residential provision is OFSTED rated good or above, with equally strong managers and residential workforce. You will therefore need to have a passion for developing and influencing practice improvement of a large workforce that continually strives to be the best they can be.

As the Head of Service you will also lead on related projects, evaluate and reshape services as and when required and influence specific strategic priorities.

You will be social work qualified with a minimum of 5 years management experience in children’s Social Care, including service delivery, performance management and, effective financial management. In particular you will have extensive experience in children in care work and demonstrate skills in adhering to, and exceeding, relevant quality standards. This includes having the necessary experience and knowledge to meet the regulations to be a Responsible Individual as defined in the Children’s Homes Regulations 2015 and to fulfil the Agency Decision Maker role for fostering.

For an informal discussion contact or If you require further information about the post – please do contact current post-holder Mary Wilton, Head of Service, Children in Care provision on 07919211175 or at mary.wilton@derbyshire.gov.uk 

or

Smruti Mehta, Assistant Director, on 07824835545 or at smruti.mehta@derbyshire.gov.uk

The ability to travel is requirement for this post.

Provisional Interview Date: w/c 22/06/20

Due to this post having access to children and/or vulnerable adults, the successful candidate will be required to undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service check. The possession of a criminal record will not necessarily prevent an applicant from obtaining this post, as all cases are judged individually according to the nature of the role and information provided. Click here to see our policy on criminal background checks.

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