Kinship Assessment Team Manager

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Full Time / 37 Hours Per Week / Permanent

Our Fostering and Kinship Service is looking to recruit a full time Team Manager to join our committed staff in the Kinship Assessment Team. You will be energetic, inspirational, passionate and resilient about achieving positive outcomes for the children and young people in Leicester.

The Kinship Assessment team is responsible for assessing connected persons and Special Guardians during care proceedings, working closely with colleagues in the children's teams to support children to have stability and permanence within their families whenever it is safe to do so.

We are committed to trauma-informed practice, working with each family's strengths to help them meet the challenges they face in order to best meet the needs of the children they are caring for. When families are referred to our team, we want them to experience a quality and timely assessment where we develop positive relationships with those family members we are assessing and supporting.

This is an exciting time to take on this leadership role, driving development of services in line with the Kinship strategy and the wider national reform agenda. Leicester City children's services are on a transformation journey and you will be a key part of the team developing and evolving the service.

Location

You'll have flexibility in hybrid working, being based at Halford House in the centre of the city of Leicester, but also able to work remotely. This is a full-time permanent post, working 37 hours per week from Monday to Friday. Core working hours are 8.30am - 5.00pm Monday to Thursday and 8:30am - 4:30pm on Fridays. However, on occasion you may be required to work out of these hours.

What you'll be doing

As a Team Manager, you'll be managing and developing at least 6 qualified social workers to perform at their best. You'll ensure a high level of quality social work is delivered when working with children and their families to achieve the best outcomes. With decisive and effective leadership, you'll maintain robust performance management, as well as participate in recruitment and development of staff through regular supervision.

You will be working in partnership with your colleagues across the department to deliver high-quality and responsive social work to kinship/connected persons carers and potential Special Guardians. Your team will lead on assessing connected persons and Special Guardians during care proceedings and pre-proceedings, attending network meetings and fostering panel, and completing reports for court.

You will lead on embedding the new Form K assessment and have a commitment to ensuring children's voices are centred in our assessments. You will provide purposeful and effective quality assurance to your team, and collaboratively manage thresholds for assessment. You'll attend and chair a range of meetings including legal planning and permanence planning meetings. The job requires a good working understanding of Signs of Safety and you will ensure staff are using this model throughout their practice.

What you'll need

With substantial post qualification experience of Child Care Social Work in a statutory setting, you'll have experience of managing, supervising, motivating and developing colleagues or be able to show you are ready to take that step.

You'll have a relevant professional qualification and be registered with Social Work England.

With a high level of verbal and written communication skills you'll be able to liaise with senior managers, stakeholders and service users as well as work effectively across multi agency partnerships to achieve common goals. You'll have the ability to work flexibly and be able to work under pressure.

Due to the nature of this role you'll be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

What we can offer you

As well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You'll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working. We'll also give you the chance to develop your skills and expertise with a variety of training and development opportunities. In addition, you can choose from a number of flexible benefits, including childcare vouchers, discounts on city buses and trains and help with relocation to Leicester, where appropriate.

Join us

We're committed to recruiting a diverse and highly-talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That's why we've designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We'll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible.

For an informal discussion about this post, please contact:

Ellie Boswell, Service Manager: 0116 454 1656 or ellie.boswell@leicester.gov.uk