Senior Social Worker (Children With Disabilities)
Redbridge is an ambitious, diverse and exciting east-London borough. What we do is driven by changing our relationship with local people to support our vision. As a result, we've developed innovative ways to build our communities and transform our Council.
The Children with Disabilities service is an interesting and exciting team in which to practice social work. Working within this OFSTED rated outstanding service will allow you to experience every area of Children’s Social Work, including completing assessments, S47 enquiries, Child Protection Conferences, Court work, LAC processes, contextual safeguarding, residential placements cases, transition work and Children in Need cases which cover the full range of S17 needs.
You will be completing direct work with children, supporting families with a disabled child, supporting siblings of disabled children, taking requests to the Resource Allocation Panel, managing Child Protection and court cases. You will also support disabled young people in their transition from Children’s Social Care to Adult Social Care. You will work closely with a variety of professionals including health, Occupational Therapy and Education.
We are looking to recruit an aspiring Senior Social Worker who can manage a caseload of complex children and young people. The variety of work will provide you with an interesting and challenging experience and the opportunity to obtain a vast repertoire of skills that will enhance your practice. You will be part of a friendly, stable, high-performing team, which has a positive team morale and opportunities to develop through training and co-working.
As the service area has built a strong learning environment which has received positive recognition from several universities, a willingness to undertake the role of Practice Educator in future is desirable.
The ideal candidate should have the following attributes:
Substantive experience of working with children, young people and their families.
Excellent writing skills and confident in representing the service at professional forums.
Committed to achieving positive outcomes for children.
Experience of completing assessments and developing SMART care plans for children, young people and their families.
A proven track record of establishing positive and meaningful relationships with children, young people and their families as well as colleagues.
Able to demonstrate personal and professional autonomy in relation to practice.
All post holders are expected to maintain professional standards of practice and to work in accordance with the Directorate vision, values, procedures and managerial guidance.
Redbridge is among the fastest growing parts of the country and the third most diverse London borough. Our communities are attracted by a mixture of excellent schools, relatively affordable housing compared to other parts of London, high quality open spaces and rapid transport connections into the heart of the City.
We are so proud of our Children and Families’ service. Rated as Outstanding by OFSTED, we offer a whole family approach to the care of children in Redbridge.
We are one of only a few authorities who have achieved this top score under the new inspection framework. Highlights from the report included praises for:
Exceptional leadership
Promotion of best practice and innovation
Highly effective practice
Happy and supported staff
Meeting emerging problems such as gangs, county lines and exploitation
Thoughtful social workers
We can provide such strong services because of our highly qualified and motivated staff who put children and young people at the heart of everything we do. We offer a range of roles in our services for social workers, family support workers and others at all levels, supported by experienced managers and a variety of learning and development opportunities.
We also continually develop our services to respond to emerging best practice so that we can continue to offer outstanding services to the children and young people in our borough.
Training, development, and support is provided for all our staff from specific programmes for newly qualified social workers through to continuous professional development for more experienced staff.
Children Services are implementing Trauma Informed Practice to equip practitioners to better support the mental health and wellbeing of our children, young people and families.
We want to offer support to frontline staff as we understand working with children, young people and families in the context of abuse, neglect and other adversities place high emotional demands on practitioners.
We offer a range of classroom based and online learning as well as opportunities for reflective practice and learning. We also have opportunities for apprenticeships and a dedicated progression programme for social workers and occupational therapists. The Career Progression Framework is closely linked to the Social Work Professional Capabilities Framework and introduces clear levels of performance and achievement in social work that are directly linked to levels of pay. This can be used to help identify strengths and areas for development.
In addition we also offer great benefits at Redbridge:
Local government pension scheme
28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)
Cycle to work scheme
Discounted Car Parking
Employee discount scheme
Flexible working options including job sharing, compressed hours and term-time working
Employee volunteering scheme
Employee assistance programme
Excellent learning & development opportunities
Performance management and career progression support
Confidential Employee Support helpline
Electric car and bike pool scheme
If you would like an informal discussion about working in children’s social care at Redbridge please contact Judy Daniels, our Principal Child and Family Social Worker at Judy.Daniels@redbridge.gov.uk