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Children's Social Workers and Senior Social Workers (Referral and Assessment Team)

Employer
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and London Borough of Wandsworth
Location
Wandsworth, London (Greater)
Salary
£31,869 to £43,887 per annum
Closing date
31 Jan 2023

The Role

Do you see yourself promoting good practice in social work?

Would you like the opportunity to shape and develop lives of children?

Would you like to join a council that promotes positive outcomes for children?

If yes, we have the perfect role for you!

Our Referral and Assessment Service are looking to recruit permanent Social Workers and Senior Social Workers to join our amazing team and help play a central role in achieving positive outcomes for children in Wandsworth!

Our offer

£31,869 to £43,887 per annum (subject to experience). For more great benefits we can offer, see out benefits section below!

Our Vision

Here in Wandsworth we are on an exciting journey of transformation. We have developed our Practice Model and preparing for the implementation of the Family Safeguarding Approach. Family Safeguarding is a way of keeping families together where it is safe to do so. It was developed and promoted by Hertfordshire and is funded by the Department of Education. Wandsworth will be the first Local Authority in London to implement this new way of working.

Motivational Interviewing is a key component of the approach and all staff will undergo training with the aim of working collaboratively with families, empowering and engaging parents to make positive changes for their children and themselves. Outcomes for children in Hertfordshire since 2015 have shown consistent improvement, with significant reduction in child protection plans, care proceedings and domestic abuse incidents.

We are investing massively on all our staff, our leaders as well as partners to enable us to make a success of our engagement with families and communities. We passionately believe that if we invest in new ways of thinking and working, you'll have everything you need to do the job you trained for. We have an incredibly sound, solid and strong leadership in Ana Popovici and Nick Pendry who have an exciting vision in transforming our approaches to the most vulnerable in society.

About the service

The Referral and Assessment Service has been subject to a recent restructure with a MASH team that includes a Specialist Hub that consists of a Domestic Abuse Specialist Worker, Child Exploitation Worker, Parental Substance Misuse worker, No Recourse to Public Funds Worker and Family Group Conference practitioners, 6 assessment teams two of which are newly created, a specialist St George’s hospital social work team and the Out of Hours service.

The service has enjoyed a stable, knowledgeable, creative, fun and exciting bunch of leaders. You will be working collaboratively with your colleagues across the service and the partnership to deliver a high-quality and responsive social work service in Referral and Assessment (RAS). We value each staff member in the service to be a leader and champion of exemplary practice and work with families with a range of needs including child protection, care proceedings, and looked-after children.

Our Front door is dynamic, has excellent partnership relationships that we continue to build upon as well as building our links with community-based resources. We work closely with our excellent Early Help Service and a range of Targeted Services in the borough. You will work collaboratively with our families, partners as well as colleagues within the Long-Term teams, bringing together and coordinating the team around the child to ensure a multi-disciplinary approach to safeguarding, as well as Assessment, Planning, Implementation and Review.

About you

We look for people with a 'can do' attitude, who are creative and champions for our children and families to achieve the best possible outcomes, as our children deserve the best.

You will need a relevant social work qualification and Social Work England membership, along with the experience of working across voluntary and statutory agencies. An excellent communicator, collaborator who is compassionate and understand the needs of children and young people. You will also have applied knowledge of relevant legislation and guidance.

All Social Worker applicants need to complete their ASYE Year to be eligible for these posts.  Wandsworth council runs a separate program for newly qualified Social Workers.

You will be key in promoting Wandsworth’s Family Safeguarding Model promoting relationship based social work and interventions, purposeful assessments, excellent social work practice at the front door, benefit from regular reflective supervision and responding to the needs of community.

All our social workers:

  • Are part of a small team of only five social workers with manageable caseloads
  • Have business support for your team who work in collaboration with you.
  • Are part of various working groups within the service and across the partnerships to champion areas of best practice and influence positive outcomes for children and families.
  • We have an excellent training offer for Social workers ranging from Systemic Training, Motivational Interviewing, Trauma Informed Practice and various other reflective spaces to promote best practice.
  • Earn up to £43k including market supplement including £2,000 welcome payment, retention bonus of £1,000 every two years (payment is pro-rata for part-time staff)
  • Access to great transport links

Contact details

For an informal discussion about the role please contact Iain Low by email iain.low@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk

Benefits

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working including, working from home, compressed or part-time hours, term time only, job shares and other arrangements. Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore. We also offer a generous holiday allowance of 39 paid days (pro rata) including bank holidays and a wide range of learning and development opportunities.

In addition, we offer a comprehensive range of staff benefits such as membership of the Local Government pension scheme, childcare vouchers, new technology scheme, interest-free loans on annual travel cards, discounts with many leisure activities, restaurants, shops and other establishments.

We provide parking for staff that are working directly with children and families. During the current covid-19 pandemic parking restrictions, permits and charging have been temporarily waived for all frontline staff.

Wandsworth is a vibrant borough with great transport links. You can visit anywhere in the borough through public transport as this is an extremely accessible borough. There are excellent shops, local leisure facilities and each area of the borough has its own unique range of amenities.

Equality Statement

Richmond and Wandsworth Councils are committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds bring important and positive contributions to the Councils and can improve the way we deliver services.

We are pleased to be Disability Confident employer.

Important Information

This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) helps employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. It replaces the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).

Richmond and Wandsworth Councils are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Richmond and Wandsworth Councils

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