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Mental Health & Justice Worker (POWER practitioner)

Employer
Essex County Council
Location
England, Essex, Chelmsford
Salary
Negotiable
Closing date
23 Jul 2021

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Sector
Health and Social Care, Social Care
Job role
Social Worker
Contract Type
Contract

Mental Health & Justice Worker (POWER practitioner)

Fixed Term, Full Time

Up to £44,212 per annum

Location: Basildon

Please not this is a Fixed Term contract for 24 months (extendable subject to funding)

Closing date: 6th July 2021

Interviews to be held on Monday 12th July

This is a fantastic opportunity to join an award-winning emotional well-being and youth justice project making a real difference to young people's lives.

The Team

The POWER project is an award-winning (Children and Young People Now Young Justice category 2019) team made up of multi-disciplinary and multi-skilled professionals, developing early interventions to prevent the escalation of children's mental health needs and reduce the risk of offending, or the need more specialist services such as Tier 4 inpatient provision. Practitioners work systemically to identify and introduce supportive measures for young people showing early stage markers of emotional distress, enabling them to remain in mainstream education, and support families to build strength and resilience in their children and young people.

The Role

Mental Health and Justice Workers carry out both 1-1 direct work with children and young people and upskill other professionals to enable capacity building, increased understanding of children and young people's needs, and to implement effective strategies to ensure longer term success.

Post-holders must hold an accredited professional qualification in social work or therapeutic practice and be registered with either Social Work England or and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Candidates will present evidence of excellent practice, participation in casework, recording and assessment. Strong partnership working is essential for this role as it operates in a multi-agency environment and across 3 local authorities, so the need to be flexible and develop innovative ways of working is key.

you will:

  • Be responsible for providing early interventions for children and young people displaying early indicators of potential mental ill health, to prevent escalation to more specialist services. This includes assessment plans, reviews, reports writing and signposting for onward referrals.
  • Develop a systemic family approach, signposting to relevant agencies and the voluntary sector, enabling parents to seek support for themselves.
  • Contribute to identifying unmet need around young people's mental health, leading to whole system change. Analyse and assess the effectiveness of key interventions, recording these to monitor success of outcomes.
  • Establish plans which provide sufficient change in young persons' behaviour to enable them to remain in a mainstream educational setting.
  • Develop and deliver bespoke upskill programmes across the system, including consultancy, to enable capacity building within educational settings, YOS, early intervention and prevention in social care and pupil referral units.
  • Cultivate innovative ways of working, testing new initiatives, which assist in the development and implementation of protocols.
  • Work collaboratively with children's mental health services, Youth Offending Service (YOS), children's social care, adopting a multi-agency approach with Police, Health and others.
  • Skills and Knowledge

  • Post-holders must hold an accredited professional qualification in social work or therapeutic practice and be registered with either Social Work England or and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and be practicing for a minimum of two years.
  • Evidence of significant continuing professional development and expert knowledge in relevant professional area, delivering assurance around practice and participation in casework, recording and supervision.
  • Evidence of direct engagement with young people, with successful delivery of 1-1 and indirect interventions.
  • Proven ability to work within an evidence informed framework, with knowledge and understanding of criminogenic factors, causing young people to offend.
  • Significant experience of building strong partnerships, which are collaborative and influential in their nature and engender delivery.
  • Deep knowledge and understanding of vulnerability and safeguarding protocols.
  • Experience of developing and delivering bespoke training and consultancy.
  • Evidence of being an effective catalyst for change, early in young peoples' lives.
  • The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wide operational area including travelling around the county of Southend, Essex and Thurrock, transporting service users and their belongings and to be able to do so in an emergency. Driving licence and car or ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means is essential.

    Essex County Council is proud to offer an excellent benefits package to all its employees. For more information please use the following link: https://www.workingforessex.com/working-here/pay-reward/

    Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

    We seek the best talent from the widest pool of people as diversity is key to our success.

    If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email or call us on 0333 013 5888. Lines are open Monday to Friday between 08:30 - 16:30.

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