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Senior Practitioner - Family Support and Protection Team

Employer
Essex County Council
Location
England, Essex, Colchester
Salary
£39168.0 - £47405.0 per annum
Closing date
13 Jul 2020

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Please note this is a Fixed Term Contract or Secondment Opportunity for 12 months

Having won the Best Social Work Employer of the Year Award and been awarded 'Outstanding' by Ofsted this is an exciting time to join us.

The Team

Family Support and Protection

The Family Support and Protection (FS&P) teams work with families that have long term complex issues, require more than three months intervention, and where children are subject to child protection or child in need plans or where children can no longer live at home and care proceedings need to be initiated. FS&P Social Workers are responsible for building on the relationships with families using systemic and strengths based social work approaches. Through this they work alongside families to achieve positive change within the context of managing risk. This work is varied and involves working with Public Law Outline (PLO), taking families into proceedings and first hearing only, Special Guardianship Order (SGO) assessments and Section 7 court reports, reviewing as well as updating assessments and plans for children subject to Children in Need (CIN), Child Protection (CP) or Looked After Children (LAC).

The Role

The Senior Practitioner role provides leadership in the team, providing both support and mentoring to newly qualified or less experienced staff and deputising for the Team Manager when needed. They will oversee the review of some child in need plans particularly prior to closure and will have responsibility to lead in a practice area. There will be good opportunities for their own professional development and for being part of developing our team and service. There is an ethos of openness to the development of new ideas, particularly to reinforce our relationship-based focus, both with our service users and within the staff group.

The successful candidate will be expected to bring skill and high standards of social work to their own caseload as well as providing modelling, advice and support to colleagues. They will be committed to systemic, relationship based social work, providing effective, innovative interventions and with the ability to build good partnerships, both with our external partners and within the organisation.

Knowledge, skills and experience

Diploma in Social Work, CQSW, CSS or equivalent.

* Social Work England registration as a registered Social Worker
* Evidence of continuing professional development
* IT/Word Processing Skills
* Evidence of recent practice at an experienced social worker level, supported by comprehensive working knowledge and experience within the field of practice in Children Services
* Preferably with experience of Child Protection work including section 47 investigations and assessments since the implementation of the Children's Act 1989.Considerable, recent experience of communicating with children of all ages and working in partnership with parents and/or carers.
* Experience in planning activities and programmes for children, young people and parents.
* Experience of Court work in relation to Child Care matters and have an understanding of the legal process.
* Detailed knowledge of current legislation pertinent to Child Protection (e.g. CA1989, CJA1991), Guidance and Regulations.
* Knowledge and understanding of child development, relating theory and practice.

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