Adolescent Safeguarding Manager

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About the role

As the Adolescent Safeguarding Manager you will review contacts and referrals across a wide spectrum of contextual safeguarding needs, including children who may be persistently missing, have been coerced into sexual or criminal exploitation, have been violent to other children or experienced serious youth violence in the community, at risk due to online activity or grooming, including radicalisation. These children may have additional learning needs or be out of education, struggling with housing needs and may have previous social care involvement and difficult home lives pushing them into unsafe relationships in the community.

The team works closely with police, education and health partners to hold strategies and deliver robust responses to harm in the community. Your role will be to respond to referrals in a timely manner, allocating assessments and chairing strategies as required. You will support social workers to identify risk and establish safety early on in the assessment and carry out investigations as required.

Workers will hold children with child-in-need or child protection plans as appropriate. AfC has a Risk Outside the Home plan available for children at the threshold of child protection but where the risk is predominantly outside the home. We work with families and partners (including outreach providers) to keep children at home where this is safe to do so. If interventions are not working then children may be considered for the SHIFT team to provide a robust long-term intervention, prior to court or care proceedings if possible.

You will ensure that visits are carried out as required and that social workers deliver meaningful direct work and interventions. As the manager you will be passionate and skilled at working with adolescents who present with trauma-led behaviours and will be able to role model best practice with workers.

For further information about this role, please contact Kathy Walker by email kathy.walker@achievingforchildren.org.uk for an informal discussion.

About you

• You are a social work manager who is passionate about working alongside young people and their families to reduce exploitation and harm in the community
• You see the stage of adolescence as a time of significant change and opportunity to influence positive self-identity and choices for their best life into adulthood
• You are skilled at identifying risks both in the home and community, analysing information from a wide range of sources to formulate clear direction and support to social workers in their delivery of plans.
• You are experienced at delivering direct work and able to support social workers in their direct work with adolescents to support them to identify positive life goals, understand and respond to risk safely and have healthy relationships
• You work well with other professionals such as the police, schools and health partners and those who can provide targeted youth support, sexual exploitation intervention or substance misuse services to make sure that the best services are offered to some of the most vulnerable young people in the area.

About our benefits

We are focused on creating a positive supportive environment, where you will have access to a really wide range of resources, as well as a competitive salary and all the perks to enable hybrid working. In AfC you will also have access to:

• 29 days annual leave, increasing to 33 days after 2 years and 35 days after 4 years with an additional day off in your birthday month(Or for term term workers, your leave entitlement consists of the non-working periods in your contract.)
• Tailored induction sessions commencing on the date you start working for AfC
• Local Government salary and pension scheme (LGPS or Teachers Pension)
• Flexible working options - helping to keep a good work life balance
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme
• A range of staff benefits and discounts
• An excellent learning and development offer to support your career pathway

To find out about all of the breadth of benefits of working for Achieving for Children click here . For our social work offer click here .

Important Information

Start dates: Achieving for Children have set start dates meaning successful candidates join on a set date in each month. Candidates are advised to prepare for this should a job offer be accepted to ensure eligible continuous service is not affected.

Right to work: The UK has introduced a new points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance.

Equality: We particularly welcome applications from sections of the community who are currently underrepresented within our teams. Achieving for Children are committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds bring important and positive contributions and can improve the way we deliver services. We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer.

Safeguarding: We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

For more information about AfC: Drop in and meet Regina on the first Wednesday of every month at Civic Centre, Twickenham.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received. Therefore, it is strongly advised that you complete and return your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.