Senior Social Work Practitioner - Permanence

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Job Description

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: £42.498- £46.344 per annum (pro-rata for part-time) Plus market Premia

Working Hours: 37 hours per week - Monday - Friday

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 16th February 2025

Interview Date(s): 22nd February 2025

About the Role

The Senior Practitioner in the Permanence Team will have a case load of complex cases whereby they will work alongside the fieldwork teams when care plans are being twin tracked with a plan of adoption. The Senior Practitioner will complete Child Permanence Reports and Sibling Assessments during court proceedings and will take the lead for ensuring that the child is fully prepared and that adopters are well supported by providing all relevant paperwork that gives detailed and robust analysis of the child's predicted needs based on their past experiences. This will inform matching, introduction and placement support.

The applicant will need to demonstrate substantial experience in statutory social work practice and excellent analytical ability evidenced in child care assessments and to manage the competing demands of working within both care proceedings and family finding and adoption placement support simultaneously. They will need to have a good working knowledge of adoption regulations, and the research base underpinning our work and a proven track record in transferring this knowledge into high standard of direct work with children and families.

We are looking for someone who has experience of supervising the work of others, supporting the team's development as well supporting the team managers to deliver service development across our practice. The Senior Practitioner will also chair the matching meetings for long-term fostering cases to provide an additional level of oversight to those matches.

Ideally the applicant will be able to demonstrate a clear understanding of our continuous improvement journey, including becomes a trauma informed service and areas for development going forward.

An enhanced DBS check 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:

• Have a Social Work degree or equivalent, e.g. CQSW, DipSW (with specialism in children's services) and be registered with Social Work England. As well as experience of supervising workers and/or students.
• Under the direction of the Team Manager, to be responsible overseeing the day-to-day operation of the Permanence Team, including deputising for the Team Manager where needed.
• To be a practice leader for signs of safety, chairing pod meetings, family finding tracking internally, on link maker and within the FAL region and to offer reflective support for social work and support staff within the team.
• To be a driver in practice development in line with our service delivery plans, including our work to embed trauma informed practice across our service delivery.
• Be able to complete reports such as Child Permanence Reports, Adoption Support plans and Annex A's to a high standard and working within tight deadlines where needed.
• Be able to evidence your skills and knowledge of creative, innovative, and relationship-based social work, working in collaboration with families and professionals. Ideally you will already be confident in the application of the Signs of Safety methodology.
• Have a full valid driving licence and access to a vehicle

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:

Emma Johnson - Team Manager Permanence Team

Telephone: 01163052345

Email: Emma.e.Johnson@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 the apply button. 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 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