Practice Leader - Children's Social Care
Newham is a diverse borough with a young and vibrant population. There are over 86,000 children and young people in the borough and we want each of them to have the same life chances as young people in other parts of London.
Newham Children and Young People’s Services are currently undertaking an exciting transformation programme to create integrated Early Help and Safeguarding services for our children, young people and families.
Our vision is to get it right the first time for all. We are aligning our services to improve accessibility for residents and to strengthen partnerships between statutory, specialist, early help and universal services.
On our journey to embed systemic practice into all our social care services we have structured the service into practice pods. The new structure has smaller social work pods led by Practice Leaders. This smaller span will enable better grip of case management, higher quality supervision and a stronger learning environment.
We are the first London borough to offer a fully integrated 0-19 health and social care service and have in-house Health Visitors and School Nurses.
If you choose to join Newham as a social worker, you’ll have access to unrivalled learning and development opportunities, retention incentives, and quality management and supervision. Dynamic, innovative, committed and passionate, you will bring comprehensive knowledge and skill-base to the challenge of working with vulnerable children and families.
Over the last six years, we’ve driven and benefited hugely from the Olympic legacy and regeneration, but we’re always ambitious to achieve more for our residents. Newham is a great place to practice social work – join us and be a part of our success!
Practice Leader - Children's Social Care
£44,607 - £50,448 pa plus a £3,000 market supplement
Our current vacancies are primarily in the Assessment, Intervention and Triage. We are seeking experienced Practice Leaders who have management experience.
We would welcome applicants with a background in systemic practice or with an interest in developing their knowledge within this area.
Accountable to and supported by a Service Manager you will be expected to:
1. To provide leadership and be accountable for the performance and quality of work within a
single social work team.
2. To ensure that children and families referred to the team are provided with appropriate
assessments and plans relevant to their needs.
3. Directly contribute to improving the resilience and independence of Newham’s children, young
people and their families.
4. Provide regular supervision and utilise performance management tools to ensure service
delivery is compliant with statutory requirements, locally defined procedures and performance
measures.
• Dynamic, innovative, committed and passionate, you'll bring a comprehensive knowledge and
skill-base to the challenge of working with vulnerable children and families .
• Substantial experience + post qualifying experience in social work interventions that promote
the safety and wellbeing of children.
• Experience in dealing with complex situations in practice and be able to meaningfully move
cases forward and secure positive outcomes for children.
• Experience of working with students or staff in a supervisory or coaching/mentoring capacity
• Able to interrogate and analyse management information systems to track and report on
performance and quality.
• Able to promote the CPD of supervisees, create a culture of learning, to support staff retention,
providing stability and driving continuous individual and service improvement.
• Able to create a safe, calm and well ordered environment and an ethos which motivates and
supports staff to be ambitious for children and families.
• Strive to share learning and collaborate with practitioners and multi-agency partners to achieve
outcomes for children and their families.
• Innovation: Bespoke, new, intermediate level systemic practice training as part of NewDAy,
Newham’s social care innovation programme – see attached flyer for more info. And a chance to
be part of our improvement journey.
• Genuine management support: Low supervisor/supervisee ratios. Practice Leaders are provided
with accredited training in systemic supervision from the Institute of Family Therapy to ensure
high quality supervision is delivered as standard. Access to mentoring and consultation from
trained family therapists. Strong culture of practice education and support for ASYEs.
• Learning & Development: Access to one-to-one coaching and wider workforce development
package to enhance your skills. Clear competency and career progression framework. Access to
smart technology and flexible working. Opportunities to qualify in post-graduate qualifications
in systemic practice.
For more information please contact Liam Barrell Recruitment and Retention Officer, on 0203 373 4376 or email childrenssocialworkerrecruitment@newham.gov.uk for more information on Practice Leader positions.
The London Borough of Newham is a Disability Confident employer. Candidates who declare that they have a disability in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 and meet the essential criteria as specified in the Job Profile will be guaranteed an interview.
Priority consideration on all advertised roles will be given to London Borough of Newham Redeployees.
The London Borough of Newham is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable groups and expects staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Please be aware that a Disclosure and Barring Scheme (DBS) check will be required for any position with access to these groups under the provision of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
In addition, the Authority reserves the right to request employees undertake a basic disclosure check (Disclosure Scotland) where required for the role this includes anyone who has access to (or information obtained directly from) a government database, or has a GCSX account. These posts will be required to have a Basic Disclosure Scotland check as per the requirements of BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standards).
Should you require any help or advice with your online application, please contact the Recruitment Help Desk on: 0203 373 0909.