Children’ Social Worker Cared for Children 000525051

Job Description

Level 3 Social Workers required in Cared for Children

Here in Trafford we are ambitious for our children and our practitioners. We want all children and families to benefit from high quality and purposeful relationships with professionals. We believe this will help create the best opportunities to empower change.

Our vision is that at all levels, our interventions make life better for children and families and we have the core value of ‘would this be good enough for my child’

We also believe one of the most effective ways to improve the outcomes for children and families is through providing our practitioners and managers with the best conditions in which they can thrive.

We have recently commissioned our relational practice partners – Strengthening Practice – who will be working alongside us for a minimum of 3 years to help us on our improvement journey. Our vision is to have practitioners and managers who are confident and brave in their practice but also to be held and supported by strong leaders at all levels.

The next steps of our improvement

As part of our improvement journey it has been critical to review the way were are organised to ensure that we have services that make sense in order to meet the needs of our children and families in a more effective way.

This has been a significant step to take but we believe is the right step to maximise our improvement.

Cared for Children and Care Experienced Young people – We are bringing together our Aftercare service and our Permanence service to create a ‘through care’ approach dedicated to children and young people who have a permanence plan who then make that transition to being a care experienced young person. In this service you will be supporting our cared for children and enabling our teenagers and care experienced young people to tackle the ups and downs, move on in life and achieve their full potential. Can you offer the care and support a child needs coming out of care proceedings, needing to have that sense of belonging and stability? Do have the experience to recognise and work with those have hidden hurt or trauma, pull partners around the child and carer and make that difference that will provide a network of support and guidance? If so this service is for you.

Our commitment to you

We believe that when you come to work within Childrens Services in Trafford, we have a responsibility to you to provide the right tools to undertake the role you are appointed to.

Induction

We have recently introduced an updated induction programme that is for all new colleagues joining us at all levels.
There will be protected time within those first few weeks for you to access the areas that we have identified as being helpful but you will also have an opportunity to add to that as you join us and get to know more about the service areas.

Workload

We are committed to ensuring that your workload is manageable. This isn’t necessarily a specific caseload number as we all know that in our practice numbers don’t always reflect the complexity of the children and families you are working with. Manageable workloads are therefore critical for managers to support you with and to confirm priorities through discussion and supervision. We do have performance management reporting of caseloads and therefore at all levels we are responsible for monitoring this across the service.
There will be times where there is a level of flexibility required to meet the needs of the service or for individual children you work with, particularly in times of crisis. We will ensure that you are able to take additional hours back quickly so that you have the balance within your work and home life.

Supervision

One of our practice led improvements has been to refresh our supervision framework which has been a really exciting piece of work. We commit to offering monthly formal supervision that is both reflective and supportive but that also provides clear advice/guidance/direction to you. We will also be implementing monthly peer supervision as part of our refreshed framework which practitioners will have a role in deciding the topic of discussion.

Development and Opportunities

We have invested in a minimum 3 year programme with relational partners, ‘Strengthening Practice’. They will deliver a programme of ‘core skills’ to the workforce but they will also work at all levels in building relationships and help us to unblock any culture barriers to improvement and learning.

In addition to this we have a workforce development programme along with a corporate development programme that supports learning and development at all levels.

We are planning our first Practice Fortnight in October 2021 which will give practitioners and managers the opportunity to attend sessions to learn about a wide range of service delivery to children and families.

The induction offer and practice week allows you to be able to shadow and learn about different areas of service but these opportunities are not limited to these times. We offer a flexible approach to this that can be considered through the development conversations in your supervisions.

A note from Pamela Wharton, Director of Early Help and Social Care.

“Thank you for showing your interest in a role here in Trafford. I hope that you find the information we have provided helpful and that you feel that Trafford is somewhere you want to come and work.

Trafford is a great place to work but we are striving to make it even better. To be at this point in our improvement journey in being able to invite applications for new opportunities in new service areas is incredibly exciting.

I look forward to receiving your application. I firmly believe together we can truly make a difference”

What’s on offer for the Social Worker

· Excellent competitive pay rate – paid weekly!

· Excellent management structure with experienced leaders

· Desirable location with excellent transport links

· A stable and well-supported working environment

You must have:

• A professional qualification in social work and experience of working with Children's
• Social Work England registration.
• Post qualified experience.
• Enhanced DBS/Update service.
• References required for the last 5 years of employment.

Benefits of working with Semester.co.uk:

• Free on-going training opportunities upon registering as part of our commitment to you.
• Competitive Rates of pay
• In house payroll, providing weekly payments and support
• Enhanced DBS completed.
• Support and expert advice from an approachable, dedicated and friendly team
• An assigned dedicated & experienced consultant
• Various employment opportunities in your preferred geographical area
• Flexible hours to meet your needs, full or part time
• Recommend a friend bonus scheme
• “Find your own job” bonus – get £250 for bringing your own position to us *

If you would like to find out more information about this role, or the other opportunities Semester.co.uk have available feel free to click the 'Apply' button below or contact the team on 0161 4199285**

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