Advanced Practitioner for Special Guardianship Support Team and Social Work Private Fostering Lead (Carer Support Team)

The Carer Support Team in Barnet provides support to Special Guardian’s once a Special Guardianship Order is granted, assesses and provides support to Private Foster Carers, adhering to statutory guidelines in supporting children within Private fostering arrangements, and provides life story work for all Special Guardianship children.

The Social Work Private Fostering Lead is a specialist social work role that predominantly involves assessing and supporting Private Foster Carers and vulnerable children within these arrangements.  Regular visits need to be undertaken to children within the statutory guidelines, and the role involves working closely with other agencies and individuals within the child’s network.

This role also involves representing Barnet within the North London Fostering and Permanence Consortium, attending monthly consortium meetings and engaging with external agencies and communities to raise awareness about private fostering arrangements. 

The Private Fostering Social Work Lead will have a mixed caseload including Special Guardianship support cases. These involve undertaking and reviewing support assessments of families in need, coordinating therapies for children via the Adoption Support Fund, implementing life story work, and linking with the Special Guardianship Contact Lead for support around contact. This role involves working closely with partner agencies such as Grandparents Plus and The Post Adoption Centre.

In Barnet we value our Social Care staff and we know that our biggest and most important resource are its workforce. We want to work with Social Workers who are reflective and dynamic, proactive and resilient that are aspirational for our children and young people with the ability to drive long lasting change.

Our Offer to you:

A competitive salary including options to tailor this based on your needs and preferences which we are happy to discuss with you

Opportunities for career progression in our social work hierarchy structure (from Advanced Practitioners, through to Heads of Service and beyond)

30 days annual leave + Bank Holidays from the start of your employment

Benefits package including access to local government pension scheme, pool cars and more.

A brand-new purpose built and modern office based 5 minutes’ walk from Colindale tube station and free parking!

Support and Training:

Access to systemic training

In house learning and development team with up to date training and emerging themes and resilience models  

In house Mental Health teams 

Manageable caseloads within small teams and all on one floor making communication effective

Work-life balance options may include flexi-time, job-share, homeworking, part-time

Funded training to Practice Educator status

You will have:

• In depth knowledge and understanding of the legislative framework and polices in relation to safeguarding children, understanding and experience of special guardianship and an understanding of the private fostering regulations.
• Excellent written skills, particularly in writing assessments and analysing family relationships, whilst also considering complex, risk factors.
• A sound understanding of safeguarding thresholds, an ability to identify safeguarding concerns and subsequently referring cases into MASH. 
• An understanding of therapeutic interventions and the ability to make recommendations about therapeutic inputs for children.
• Highly competent oral communication liaising with families, professionals as well as being able to provide clear, evidence based recommendations.
• Proven experience in either Kinship, Fostering or Private Fostering.
• An ability to work in a multi-agency way, linking in with and contributing to, both the Private Fostering and Special Guardianship Consortium.
• Innovative and positive engagement with families, as well as a passion for delivery of high quality services and interventions to vulnerable children in partnership with a wide range of agencies.
• Regrettably we cannot accept applications from those who do not hold recognised social work qualifications.

For the role of an Advanced Practitioner, you will also have:

• The skills and ability to practice at a higher level which includes deputising for the line manager in circumstances where the line manager is not available.
• The ability to demonstrate expert and effective practice in complex situations and be able to assess and manage higher levels of risk on their own and that of other less experienced social workers. 
• The skills to support less experienced social workers and be assessors for NQSWs in the teams in their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment.
• *We appreciate that not all employees want the same rewards and benefits package. Therefore, at Barnet we have a flexible benefits offer that can be tailored made to suit an individual’s preference.  Where an employee does not wish to opt in to the Pension scheme, we can offer an additional allowance which is funded by the reduction in our employer pension costs.  * Please note that this has been factored in to the highest end of this salary range, combined with basic pay and a recruitment and retention allowance. We would be happy to discuss this with you at the interview process.

Barnet is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Barnet operates stringent safer recruitment procedures.

If shortlisted you will be required to bring photographic ID to your interview to prove your identity.