Senior Practitioner -First Response

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

Job Description

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall Glenfield Leicester LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: £41,208- £45,054 Plus market premia of £2,250 -per annum

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 22nd September 2024

Interview Date(s): 4th October 2024

Come and be part of our Outstanding First Response Service, Assessment and Screening.

It's an exciting time to be a part of Children and Family Services at Leicestershire County Council, our staff are at the heart of delivering excellent services to children and families across Leicestershire. Come and join us and make a difference to the lives of children and families in Leicestershire.

Our recent Ofsted inspection praised Leicestershire's work to build "strong and long-lasting relationships" with children and families which lead to many families achieving "positive changes" in their lives. They highlighted an "ambitious and child-focused senior leadership that has successfully created a culture where the experiences and progress of children at the heart of social work practice".

You can read more about our Ofsted Outstanding rating here and find out more from staff here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwss7iqqHr8

About the Role

We have Senior Practitioner roles within the First response, Screening team. These are exciting opportunities to be part of a diverse and highly skilled team, we are looking for a passionate, dedicated, and child focussed, social worker.

As a Senior Practitioner within the Screening team, you will triage the incoming contacts from members of the public and professionals, you will be able to apply a robust threshold consistently and make clear recommendations for next actions within 24 hours. You will have good relationships with our Family Help Triage and partner agencies to support you identifying the right outcomes for children and families. This is predominantly an office-based role but there is flexibility to work flexibly which is balanced with meeting the service needs and demands.

You will support staff within the service on complex enquiries, lead and present at development meetings, support with service performance and the learning and development of individuals as well as the team.

In Leicestershire we have a fantastic package to provide our workers. This includes the option as a full-time worker to do hybrid working, celebrating diversity with a range of events throughout the year, recognition of our staff in annual Pride in Practice events, fantastic learning and training opportunities - enabling our staff to develop and progress within their roles and committed wellbeing support.

We are proud of our continuous improvement plan - 'Achieving Excellence through Purposeful Practice' which sets out our key values, behaviours and ambitions. We have embedded the Signs of Safety approach throughout our services and this approach mirrors our values of Aspiration, Being Curious and Collaboration. We are focused on working with families and the networks of family, friends and professionals around children, to work in collaboration to achieve shared goals.

We are committed to our vision of becoming a trauma informed responsive department where we believe we are "stronger together". Our culture is one of partnership, where we look for solutions and recognise the potential impact of trauma on the children and families we work with and on our staff. We will strive to create a safe, compassionate, healing environment demonstrated through relationships based on trust, respect, hope and empathy. We will achieve this through a spirit of curiosity, by nurturing connections through relationships, making a deliberate effort to know and understand people, and by providing hope for growth and recovery.

We support and empower our staff to be the best that they can be. We will give you the support and resources that you need to work in collaboration with children and families.

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

About You

To apply for this post, you must:

• Be a qualified Social Worker holding a Social Work degree or equivalent, e.g., CQSW, DipSW (with specialism in children's services) and be registered with Social Work England, hold a valid driving licence and access to a vehicle.
• Extensive knowledge and application of social work legislation, methodologies, social care policies, guidance, procedures and case reviews with a commitment to your continuous professional development.
• Have ability and experience of supporting with service performance and the learning and development of individuals as well as a team.
• You must also understand, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Have experience and understand the importance of multi-agency working and the differing roles, responsibilities, remit and functions of other parts of the wider service and agencies.
• The ability to communicate clearly and accurately, both orally and in writing, with a wide range of people, including representatives from other agencies, using skills of negotiation and persuasion. Have good IT skills, including Microsoft Outlook and Word, and database applications.

To find out more about working for Children and Family Services click here Children and Family Social Worker recruitment

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working?

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. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Lorna Nolan, assistant service manager, Screening - lorna.nolan2@leics.gov.uk

Jo Searle, service manager, First Response - joanne.searle@leics.gov.uk

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on 'Apply Now'. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

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.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.freshdesk.com/support/home.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About Us

About Leicestershire County Council

Leicestershire County Council is a Stonewall Top 100, Disability Confident, Menopause Friendly, Mindful Employer, Fostering Friendly, Forces Friendly, and Cycle Friendly organisation. In August 2021, we also signed up to the Race at Work Charter. We are strongly committed to promoting equality and opportunity, championing employee wellbeing and investing in staff training and development.

Our aim is to work with communities and partners to deliver public services that make Leicestershire the best possible place to live and work for everyone. Our employees play a key role in supporting this goal and helping us deliver the vital services we provide to the people of Leicestershire.

For further information on what it's like to work for us and the benefits we offer, please refer to the following:

Our Recruitment Process
Our Organisational Values
Our Employee Benefits
Working for Us