An exciting opportunity has arisen to join us as a SHiFT Guide.
The Bexley SHiFT Practice consists of a Lead Guide, 4 Guides, and a Practice Co-ordinator. As a SHiFT Guide, you will deliver highly responsive, flexible, child-centred interventions, working tenaciously to build relationships and enable positive change. You will be there for children and young people in moments of crisis and when they are most in need of support, including out of hours and weekends.
This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
The Bexley SHiFT Practice is a collaboration between SHiFT Organisation ltd (a registered Charity) and Children’s Services at the London Borough of Bexley. SHiFT exists to break the destructive cycle of children caught up in, or at risk of, crime and associated behaviour.
The SHiFT Practice works with children and young people up to the age of 25 for whom things are getting worse, not better. SHiFT offers children an intensive, 18-month, needs and strengths-led, therapeutic relationship. Investing time enables SHiFT to create trust, build stability and provide consistency. Working as highly skilled, multidisciplinary teams of professionals, SHiFT gets alongside young people who are among the most vulnerable and causing the most harm to themselves and others. We start from wherever a young person is, working systemically with them, their family, friends, and community (including all statutory professionals in their lives) to develop high trust, culturally competent and strengths-driven relationships that catalyse pro-social change.
We know that change is difficult. We also know that young people in conflict with the law have complex and overlapping education, health, and social care needs, and that offending behaviours can mask significant and underlying vulnerabilities. Recognising this, SHiFT commits to doing whatever it takes to break destructive cycles of harm and trauma. Unconstrained by age, geographic or professional boundaries, SHiFT starts with aspiration and belief in the young people in our care.
For an informal discussion about the role please contact Severine Aare, service manager, on 02030455054, severine.aare@bexley.gov.uk.
You will be co-located with the Youth Justice Service, which is part of a successful partnership and at the heart of developments to prevent crime and promote the inclusion of young people in Bexley.
For the position of guide, we are looking for a highly skilled practitioner, with significant experience of working with adolescents. You will have experience of delivering successful change through evidence-based approaches with children and young people who present with a range of complex needs and be able to work flexibly and independently with limited management oversight. You will need to have outstanding communication and interpersonal skills and bring experience of working in a multi-disciplinary context.
Bexley Children’s Services has adopted Signs of Safety as its practice model. This strengths and solution focused ethos of working with families and colleagues is threaded throughout all areas of Children’s Social Care. As part of your role, you will work alongside this practice framework.
Bexley provides exceptional training, development, and supervision and our staff retention rates are excellent.
You will be educated to a degree level and have significant experience in undertaking direct work with young people.
For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description .
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.
As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on recruitment@bexley.gov.uk
Bexley is well connected, there are good transport links to central London, the Kent countryside and the Coast! It is the best of both worlds. Our residents and workers can benefit from the new high-speed Elizabeth Line which goes from Abbey Wood, here in Bexley and all the way to Reading, Southeast England.
We are a diverse and growing borough. By 2030 our population will be over 260,000 and almost 300,000 by 2050. Almost 25% of our population is Black and Asian Multi-Ethnic. Bexley is one of London’s greenest boroughs and has recently been awarded Public Sector Campaign of the year by Sustainable City’s prestigious annual awards.
We believe that everyone in Bexley Children’s Social Care should have the opportunity to grow and develop, in every role and at every stage of their career and offer a wide variety of social work roles, both for qualified and unqualified practitioners. Bexley Children’s Social Care offers the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge in different areas of Children’s Services: we offer a comprehensive range of professional development opportunities and are committed to ensuring that Bexley is a welcoming and enjoyable place to work.
The children and families we work with, are always kept at the centre of our practice. We believe:
children should stay with their families whenever it’s in their best interests and safe to do so
where it’s not, we must act quickly through the courts to help children find a safe space
success depends on positive, respectful relationships with families and with each other
working with families is unpredictable, so we have to create a supportive environment for our teams
the most effective practice is based on ‘showing your working out’ – so that even when things don’t go to plan, the thinking behind decisions is clear and defensible
Working in social care in Bexley is endlessly rewarding. As well as helping some of the most vulnerable people in our borough, we invest in looking after you and your career.
We offer excellent benefits, from competitive salaries and generous leave to flexible working and a wealth of health and wellness programmes.
flexible working - including opportunities for hybrid working, job sharing, compressed hours, and career breaks
a comprehensive range of training and professional development opportunities including access to research, group and e-learning, coaching and group supervision for colleagues in all roles and at every stage of their career
clear career progression pathways, within a nurturing environment, which allows social work to flourish. From opportunities to undertake social work qualification; our dedicated ASYE Academy; to our Leadership Academy offering bespoke development for our aspiring and existing leaders. There are also opportunities for practitioners to be involved in university research & academic delivery with our partner universities and students.
family leave - includes maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave
mental health and physical wellbeing - including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, help to quit smoking, access to private healthcare, free eye tests and discounted leisure offers
financial wellbeing - excellent pension scheme, charitable giving options
generous annual leave - 25 to 33 days, with the option to purchase extra leave plus an extra bank holiday at Christmas
competitive pay - performance assessments with the opportunity for salary increments and transparent salary scales
transport offers - cycle to work scheme, carpooling, subsidised parking and interest-free season ticket loans
recognition - Thank you messaging to celebrate staff success and sharing of compliments received
professional and personal development - training and workshops to help you thrive and a discount on most Learning and Enterprise College Bexley courses
staff support networks - our networks support and encourage networking between staff with various events throughout the year
employee volunteering - get out of the office and help a local project blossom
MyChoice benefit scheme - your pick of perks from vouchers to car leasing
local authority discount scheme - attraction and theme park discounts and local offers in partnership with KAARP .
We work together in a modern, well-equipped, energising environment that supports team working and collaboration across the service and with partners