About Us:

Working as part of Children’s Services will provide a challenging and rewarding career. We have high ambitions for the children and young people of Kensington and Chelsea. We have formed a bi-borough Children’s Services team with colleagues from Westminster City Council.

Our services, which include education, family services and safeguarding, have been rated Outstanding by Ofsted, and our drive to be the best doesn’t stop there. By working with us, you will have the opportunity to make a difference to young people in one of the world’s most diverse cities.

If you would like to play a part in this unique team, please take a look at the vacancies below. 

The Role:

The Bi Borough Children’s Services for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council is high performing and wants to achieve good outcomes for children, young people and their families. We work together to ensure high standards of delivery across our two local authorities. This joint initiative was recognised as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in its most recent inspection (September 2019).  

This Bi Borough Safeguarding Lead for Schools and Education Settings is an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of vulnerable children and young people, and to support schools and education settings in safeguarding children. 

This varied role calls for a qualified social worker with safeguarding experience, and a practical understanding of the work with schools and education settings.  

In this demanding but rewarding role you will have the opportunity to work closely with a broad range of schools and education settings, advising and supporting them on their safeguarding practice, working closely with colleagues in Education, Family Services, and Community Safety Directorates. You will need to be confident in presenting and delivering training in a number of different forums to support the dissemination of learning and the promotion of effective safeguarding partnerships.

The successful candidate will join an experienced and energised Safeguarding Review and Quality Assurance Service and have a prominent profile across the Bi Borough. You will also be working with partners under the framework of the Local Safeguarding Children Partnership.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information. 

About You:

You will need have at least 5 years post social work qualifying experience, and able to demonstrate supervisory and leadership skills in your previous roles.

This role requires the post holder to have strong relationship qualities to ensure our safeguarding partnership work is at the core of our service delivery model.  

A solid understanding of our legislative and statutory frameworks, and to work in collaboration with a wide range of schools and education provisions, and with other safeguarding partners.

You will need to have considerable safeguarding and child protection experience in order to lead on this complex area of safeguarding and partnership work with schools.  You will work alongside colleagues in the Schools Standards Services of our Bi Borough Education Directorate. 

You will need to have excellent communication skills and be able to deliver training on key safeguarding issues to continue to drive improvements across the schools and education arena.

This role provides a unique opportunity to support and promote effective safeguarding practice to education agencies who work bridge the platforms between strategic and operational delivery, and have an interface with senior management leads to influence positive change and strengthen practice.

You will have a key role in supporting the work of the Safer Organisations Manager and LADO, in ensuring education settings are delivering upon their safeguarding responsibilities and ensuring that allegations management is responding to effectively. 

Role Requirements:

• Qualified to degree level.
• Qualified Social Worker with at least 5 years of experience.
• Experience of providing support to other practitioners.
• Have undertaken child protection work and developed a sound understanding of robust safeguarding practice and the responsibilities of all to promote and protect children.  
• Worked with schools to ensure children are safeguarded, and have a sound background knowledge of the education system in its widest sense. 
• Effective communication and negotiation skills.
• Deliver training to a range of professionals and volunteers from a wide variety of agencies, voluntary and community groups. 

We work in partnership with Hampshire County Council (HCC) who deliver many transactional services on our behalf. Although most communications will be from HCC, all selection and appointment decisions will be made by RBKC. Certain services are shared across more than one Council area to nearby neighbouring Authorities. This enhances delivery and reduces costs. Your recruitment information will advise if your remit extends beyond RBKC.

We will primarily contact candidates by e-mail throughout the recruitment process, please monitor your email junk / spam folder as our system generated emails may be allocated to these folders by your email settings.

We engage our staff with a variety of learning types including face-to-face and virtual learning because we want to ensure our staff understand our values and behaviours, grow their skills and develop their careers.

We are committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.