Re-engagement Unit Social Worker
Hackney Education provides a range of services to support the education of children, young people and adults in our inner London borough. Hackney is one of the UK’s highest performing local authorities, serving one of London’s best places to live and work. Within our diverse borough we serve a wide range of children and young people. We have a particular focus on supporting less advantaged families: Hackney figures in the 10% most deprived boroughs in England on a number of measures.
Hackney Education’s key priority is to improve the life chances of every child, young person and learner: making Hackney the most forward looking education system in the UK, where schools, settings and partners provide an exciting environment which ensures inclusion and success for everyone. We see our borough as being one of the best places in the country for young people to grow, learn, develop and achieve – and one of the best places for colleagues to work and thrive in our education system.
This post is unique to our newly expanded Re-engagement Unit (REU) - Hackney Education’s social, emotional and mental health support (SEMH) service accessible by children of statutory school age attending a Hackney school.
The REU is a multidisciplinary team made up of teachers, psychotherapists, and clinical psychologists and youth workers, amongst other disciplines. We want to expand this wealth of experience to include a social worker with experience of working in and with schools, and with children managing SEMH challenges and their families. Our service works to stabilise children by influencing the systems around them to place them in the best position possible to be happy and achieve well in school. We are looking for a flexible, practical social care professional who understands the complexities of supporting children and their families when things aren’t working well, and the importance of ensuring that these children are able to remain in school and not suffer permanent exclusion for their setting.
You must be focused, dynamic and motivated with excellent interpersonal skills - we deliver a service that thrives off of our collective sincere empathy for our schools, families and even the colleagues we work with, and we believe that this is the cornerstone of our highly functioning service.
This post is an Education post, and is not supervised or line managed within social care, as such you will not be expected to undertake any statutory social work within this role. Interested? Please apply via our website: https://education.hackney.gov.uk/jobs/hlt
Hackney Education is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. We expect all staff to share this commitment. As this role involves regulated activity, the successful applicant will be required to undertake an enhanced DBS check and additional pre-employment checks in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory guidance.
This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020. We are also working towards our vision, which is to be a place for everyone; where residents and staff can be proud; a place that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included and involved. In order to achieve this, we look for people who are: Proud; Ambitious; Pioneering; Open; Proactive; Inclusive.
Hackney Council works to eradicate discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, age and marital status. We also recognise that people can be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will also work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We also welcome those interested in flexible working. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people and people from a black and ethnic minority background as these groups are currently under represented in our workforce.