placements Officer

Fostering Placement Officer – Fostering Children Services – Croydon Council

Hybrid working

Job Purpose

To develop and provide a flexible and high quality in house Fostering Placements Service with the purpose of: improving placement choice, availability and stability for children in care; improving the experience of social workers, foster carers and children in identifying suitable placements; delivering the best possible value to the Council in terms of cost and quality of placements.

You will get to know our Foster carers and ensure that children are matched appropriately in order to prevent placement breakdown and retain foster carers. Matching between children and suitable foster carers will identify who can meet the child or young person’s emotional, educational, cultural and health needs, and who can provide stability and a sense of belonging.

We take our corporate parenting role very seriously and are committed to supporting our children. To achieve this we work collaboratively to provide a service which is both relationship-based and which responds in a timely manner within required timeframes.

Essential Requirements

• An awareness of problems and issues that can impact on children and young people.
• Ability to assess and match children and young people’s needs to appropriate placement, understanding and using risk assessments in placement finding activity, in consultation with senior staff with the placement service.
• Ability to use initiative to ensure that process requirements are met but not to the detriment through delay of any potential placement or service options.
• Ability to Keep detailed records of discussions, whilst tracking, monitoring and updating our internal Foster Carer records and capacity
• Ability to Work with Supervising Social Workers to ensure our in - house Foster Carers are available and prepared to take Children and Young People
• Be competent and confident in the legal duties regarding information and other sensitive data sharing in respect of vulnerable children and young people.
• Highly skilled in the use of all forms of IT and the ability communicate clearly both verbally and in writing.
• Experience of developing relationships with Foster Carers, Social Workers, Supervising Social Workers and others.
• Experience of working in a supportive relationship with children, young people and families.
• Candidates will need to demonstrate their ability to working positively with stakeholders and collaborative working relationships with children and their families.

Benefits
You will be valued for your skills and expertise, supported by the team of experienced professionals, as well as the management at Croydon Council, one of the largest employers in the borough. We also offer:

Highly competitive compensation package

29-31 days (grade equivalent) annual leave in addition to Bank Holidays and option to purchase more

A pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 20%

Continuing Professional Development – genuine opportunities to grow, develop and specialise in your career

Management development programmes

Investment into your wellbeing

Access to Employee Discount scheme with a range of programmes (Cycle Benefit Scheme, GymFlex, Retail Discounts and more)

We promote flexible & hybrid working arrangements where possible to support a healthy work-life balance