Social Worker
Organization: London Borough of Waltham Forest
Salary: SWNEW £36,567 to £46,041
Contract Type: Full-time, Fixed term, up to 12 months maternity cover
Working hours per week: 36 hours
Application Deadline: 19/07/2024
Proposed Interview Date(s): TO BE CONFIRMED
Reference:1282
About Us:
Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.
We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.
London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London's Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.
About the role:
The post is that of Social Worker within Children and Families Services and is responsible for a range of activities to support the Service in maintaining high standards and compliance with Regulations and National Minimum Standards.
To assess Special Guardians and connected carers, providing support alongside this where the child is already in placement under a temporary approval. To devise support plans and seek approval of these, supporting up to the point of the order and then working with the post order support team to hand the support over. This role will manage a caseload as well as contribute to team effort in, supporting and advising colleagues and carers. To actively promote and provide training and development for carers. Connected Persons / Special Guardian assessment and support; Care Standards investigations; forms and procedures development. Supervisory visits, accurate and contemporaneous recording. To provide evidence in court. The role may also involve some Post- Order work with SGO carers.
>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<
Key Responsibilities:
Knowledge, skills and experience:
- Experience in a Children & Families setting
- Experience in undertaking complex casework within a statutory children's setting
- Experience of service delivery which is culturally sensitive and responsive to the needs of a multi-cultural community
- Ensure the delivery of a unified & effective planning around placements for children & young people.
- Monitor referral information; ensuring all children & young people requiring accommodation are treated equally and as far as possible ensuring their needs in relation to gender, race, ethnicity, culture, special needs, disability &education are met.
- Work within the sufficiency guidance & regulations in accordance with the Care Planning, Placement & Case Reviews (2010) and related amendments.
- Knowledge of SGO, Fostering Regulations, and NMS and ensure these are met.
- Ensure workflow and placement requests follow Local Authority procedures.
- Monitor all placements work for quality and value for money.
- Ensure placement matches for C&YP can be evidenced as being transparent, robust, and in line with Local Authority care plans.
- Deliver best practice working closely with the Access to Resources Team and Referring Children's Teams in placement planning, diversity considerations within NMS and Fostering, Special Guardianship, Private Fostering, and other relevant regulations.
- Ensure Local Authority carers follow Safeguarding procedures and Local Authority guidelines.
- Ensure all placements are made within the council's procedures.
- Experience in prioritisation, care planning, and service delivery
- Demonstrable knowledge and experience in assessing complex risk
- Experience of having to interpret, understand, and make judgments on the complex interactions between the risk and protective factors in any given situation when arriving at a decision about whether the child or young person is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm.
- Have high-level knowledge and skills in gathering information from a range of sources, including direct observation of children and young people and their interactions with family and carers.
- Make timely judgments and decisions that are based on evidence and thorough analysis of all the information gathered.
- Demonstrate an ability to draw up specific practical plans with clear timescales that are based on high-quality assessments, which set out the planned outcomes for the child or young person.
- Systematically monitor and review decisions and plans, revising them where appropriate in the light of new information and evaluation of whether the interventions are achieving the planned outcomes.
- Know about the different methods of intervention and, on the basis of a critical review of the research evidence, understand their effectiveness.
- Demonstrate or show evidence of having undertaken assessments and managed to completion. Able to demonstrate a good level of conceptualisation of critical analysis.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (verbal and written).
- ICT skills including the use of Microsoft applications.
Indicative Qualifications:
Educated to degree standard or equivalent
Relevant professional qualification
Social England registered
Terms and conditions:
The below terms and conditions apply to this role:
Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
Satisfactory declaration of interest;
This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/ or vulnerable adults;
Satisfactory enhanced DBS check;
Continued professional body registration;
As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.
How to Apply:
Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the 'Apply' button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.
To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.
We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.
For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.
Contact Information:
If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Nilza Saide, Permanence and Post Order Team manager at nilza.saide@walthamforest.gov.uk or 07919080416.
If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.
The Council's preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.
Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.