senior practitioner social worker

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About Us

EPUT provides community health, mental health and learning disability services to support more than 3.2 million people living across Bedfordshire, Essex and Suffolk. Also:

• We are among the largest employers in the in the East of England region, with more than 10,000 staff working across more than 200 sites.
• We run the COVID-19 vaccination programme across mid and south Essex and Suffolk and north east Essex.

EPUT was formed on 1 April 2017 following the merger of North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (NEP) and South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT). A new leadership team was established at the Trust in 2020.
Our vision and values

Our Vision

"To be the leading health and wellbeing service in the provision of mental health and community care".

Our Purpose

"We care for people every day. What we do together, matters".

Our Values

• We Care
• We Learn
• We Empower

Our strategic objectives

• We will deliver safe, high quality integrated care services.
• We will enable each other to be the best that we can.
• We will work together with our partners to make our services better.
• We will help our communities to thrive.

Our services

• Mental Health Services
• Community Health Services
• Learning Disabilities Services
• Social Care

Find out more about the services we offer in our service directory.

Job overview

As a Senior Social Work Practitioner you will be required to provide a service for young people in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Inpatient Unit. Senior social worker for the service will supervise social workers in the service working across Rochford Hospital site and ST Aubyn Centre Colchester site. You may need to travel at times between sites. Working alongside inpatient staff, the post holder will liaise with other agencies, both within Essex and outside, to ensure that young people and their families/carers receive the best possible support and care in relation to their mental health problems.

Main duties of the job
• Manage care, plan, support and review care needs in line with policy, procedures and legislation.
• To ensure where appropriate that service users are referred for suitable follow-up care.
• Be actively involved in developing of transitional assessments as required by the Care Act.
• To be conversant with the Children Act, the Care Act and the Mental Health Act and be able to work with this legislation to maximise safe and effective care planning.
• To develop knowledge of resources and services in local communities
• To develop links with local authorities and ICB's to develop smooth transition planning both with and outside local area.

Working for our organisation

EPUT are looking for motivated staff who shares our Trust values of Care, Learn and Empower. In return, EPUT can offer you a range of benefits and development including;

• Season Ticket Loans
• NHS discounts for staff
• Excellent Training facilities and opportunities
• Buying and Selling annual leave scheme
• The opportunity to work bank shifts and expand knowledge and experience in other areas
• Salary Sacrifice schemes including lease cars and Cycle to Work
• Day One Flexible Employer

The Trust supports and actively encourages flexible working for all employees. We offer many options and you are encouraged to ask the recruiting manager what is possible for this role. If appointed, you will have the opportunity to apply for a flexible working request from the first day of your employment

Join our Staff bank

What is Staff Bank?

Our EPUT NHS staff bank is an entity managed by the trust that hires clinical and non-clinical healthcare professionals to take on shifts at our trust hospitals and community settings. Here at EPUT we maintain our own bank of specialist staff to ensure that we are able offer safe and effective care at all times.

All our permanent staff are automatically enrolled onto the staff bank however this does not mean you have to work any additional shifts, but the option is there for you if you wish.

If you are joining our Trust in a fixed term role, please indicate on your New Starter Paperwork that you wish to join our staff bank.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
• Manage care, plan, support and review care needs in line with policy, procedures and legislation.
• To ensure where appropriate that service users are referred for suitable follow-up care.
• Be actively involved in developing of transitional assessments as required by the Care Act.
• To be conversant with the Children Act, the Care Act and the Mental Health Act and be able to work with this legislation to maximise safe and effective care planning.
• Support in the development of effective transition from children to adult services. Offer joint training with partner agencies to staff in EPUT to support transition planning. To promote a recovery and strengths based approach focussing on the well-being of each young person or carer planning care around individual needs, wishes and outcomes, as per the Children and Families Act and the Care Act (2014). To understand and utilise Health and Social Care commissioned services, demonstrating an understanding of eligibility under The Care Act and working in collaboration with nursing and other health care colleagues to ensure the appropriate and timely presentation of cases to panel, and the robust reviewing of placements to ensure effective and efficient use of resources, and recovery based delivery of services.
• To develop knowledge of resources and services in local communities
• To develop links with local authorities and ICB's to develop smooth transition planning both with and outside local area.
• Establish therapeutic relationships with service users, their families and carers. Maintain client centred approach balanced with need to manage risk of harm or deterioration.
• Enable individual's families and carers to address issues which affect their health and social well-being.
• Statutory responsibility for the assessment of carer's (including young carer's) needs and the formulation of a carers care plan in conjunction with the carer's support workers.
• Prepare and present clear, assessment and other reports as necessary to set out the basis of decisions made in respect of service users. Maintain all records to a high standard in accordance with relevant legislation, policy and procedures. Provide information, written assessments, reports and statements to support other service professionals, managers and agencies in making decisions related to care. Provide specialist reports to Mental Health Review Tribunals for service users subject to the Mental Health Act.

Person specification

essential driver

Essential criteria

• Be able to drive

essential

Essential criteria

• social work registration
• experience working with children

Desirable criteria

• previous experience working with children
• social work registration

!Important Professional References

Make sure that as a part of your application you have professional references with business contract information covering your last three year employment history. We are unable to accept personal or character references.

As a newly appointed employee you are responsible for incurring the cost of your initial DBS check relevant to your post, the amount will be deducted from your first salary with the Trust.

Applications for Job Share are positively welcomed.

Equal Opportunities Employer

Our Trust is an Equal Opportunities Employer. We particularly welcome applications from people with experience of using mental health services. We also hold the Disability two tick symbol and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with learning disabilities, we encourage people with a disability to apply. If you require this application form in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape etc, please contact the Recruitment Department on 01375 364513 or email epunft.recruitment.adverts@nhs.net and we can arrange for this to be dispatched to you.

The Trust has the right to expire vacancies prior to the closing date if they so wish. The Trust makes every attempt to contact all applicants and we strongly advise that you check the email account which is registered with NHS Jobs regularly, we would advise however due to the high number of applications we receive that if you have not heard from us within three weeks of the closing date your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expect all staff to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to robust safer recruitment processes.

Covid Vaccination

Although Covid vaccinations are no longer a mandatory requirement within the NHS we continue to encourage and support the vaccination uptake as this remains the best line of defence against Covid19. The safety of our staff and patients is a top priority for us at EPUT.

If you would like to book a Covid vaccination or would like more information please contact us by emailing epunft.cv19hr@nhs.net.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• senior social worker (PDF, 880.3KB)
• senior social worker (PDF, 400.6KB)
• EPUT Pledge - Step into Health (PDF, 211.0KB)
• Candidate Privacy Policy (PDF, 173.9KB)
• Right to Work Information (PDF, 293.6KB)
• Employer Recognition Scheme - Gold Award (PDF, 27.7KB)
• Trust Vision and Values (PDF, 168.9KB)
• Values of the NHS Pension (PDF, 151.3KB)