Senior Social Worker

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

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust Secure Care Division (SCD) provides secure mental health and specialist learning disabilities services within inpatient and community settings.
An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Statutory Social Worker to join SCD Social Work Service. We are looking to recruit a dynamic and enthusiastic person into a Band 7 Senior Social Worker post within Maghull Health Park, although you will be required to work across all social work services within the footprint of SCD and deliver professional social work consultancy.
Maghull Health Park consists of High, Medium, and Low Secure inpatient services that provide care and treatment to patients detained under the Mental Health Act. Our service users routinely have complex needs associated with a severe and enduring mental illness and/or learning disability, and a history of offending or risk behaviours.

Main duties of the job

The primary function of the role is to provide Social Work and Safeguarding leadership within SCD whilst also practicing as a Senior Social Worker. You will be an active member of SCD Social Work Leadership Team, leading the social work service/workforce. You will oversee operational service delivery, workforce professional leadership, performance, Safeguarding and ensure quality standards and adherence to statutory responsibilities and governance frameworks.
You will work with service users, cares, multi disciplinary colleagues and multiagency colleagues with external key partners. We are looking for an individual with the ability to work collaboratively with others whilst maintaining professional social work identity and independence.
We are ideally looking for an individual with a broad range of experience of working within Statutory Adult Social Care settings, and who has robust knowledge and experience of Safeguarding practice and procedures. You should be able to demonstrate appropriate experience and application of relevant Statutory Health & Social Care legislation and frameworks, and the ability to lead and support services and others.
There is a strong safeguarding focus to the role in providing support to organisational safeguarding and promoting the key principles of the Care Act and the Making Safeguarding Personal agenda.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You should have excellent leadership skills supported by strong interpersonal and communication skills and be able to interact at all levels. Good organisational, problem solving and analytical skills are essential as well as the ability to work autonomously using your own initiative and whilst also being able to lead others and work in partnership with other services and organisations. You should be able to demonstrate an understanding of policy/procedures and be able to apply these to self, services and others.
You should have a good working knowledge of adult mental health social work Safeguarding and Statutory practice. You should also possess a good working knowledge of the Mental Health, Mental Capacity and Care Act as well as all other key health & social care legislation.
You should have a passion for Social Work and Mersey Care's vision and values of Continuous Improvement, Accountability, Respect, Enthusiasm and Support (CARES) which underpins the Social Work Service and the way we work together to deliver services.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Degree in Social Work or DipSW or CQSW
• Current Social Work England registration.
• Post-qualifying training (formally or work based) in relevant areas of social work and/or mental health, learning disability or forensics. Evidence of significant continuing professional and personal development.

Desirable criteria

• Masters Degree (MSW) or Post Graduate (PGDipSW)
• Qualifications relating to the Mental Capacity Act, e.g., Best Interest Assessor.
• Practice Educator qualification 1 & 2 (PEPS).
• Approved Mental Health Professional Qualification.

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Suitable post qualifying experience as a Social Worker
• Good working knowledge of legislative guidance and policy e.g., Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act, Care Act, Human Rights Act and criminal justice frameworks e.g., MAPPA, Victim Liaison, MARAC and Carers' Rights.
• Knowledge and application of professional standards, codes of conduct and Social Work England standards of proficiency and Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF).
• Good working understanding of Information Governance, Data Protection and confidentiality.
• Ability to assess and manage complex cases in a multidisciplinary team setting.
• Skilled at assessing and implementing risk management frameworks.
• Skilled at assessing and promoting the involvement of people in developing their own care/ support plans using a strength and asset-based approach.
• An understanding of Equality, Inclusion and protected characteristics.
• Experience of working with service users with mental disorders and/or learning disabilities.
• Experience of presenting reports in formal setting, e.g., Courts, Mental Health Tribunals, Safeguarding Strategy.
• Experience in working with families
• Experience of child and adult safeguarding.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with forensic service users.
• Experience of supervising others.

Skills

Essential criteria

• To be able to practice safely and effectively within scope of practice.
• To be able to practice within the legal and ethical boundaries of Social Work profession.
• Understand the key concepts of the knowledge base relevant to Social Work profession.
• Be able to draw on appropriate knowledge and skills to inform practice.
• Develop written documents including report writing relevant for practice.
• An ability to manage time, prioritise work and meet deadlines.
• To be able to practice as an autonomous professional.
• To be able to communicate effectively
• To be able to build compassionate and effective relationships.
• To be able to maintain records appropriate.
• Interpersonal skills and resilience to manage complex clinical case work.
• Written and verbal communication skills to engage with patients, carers and professionals.
• Well-developed analytic and judgement skills, dealing with complex situations where required to lead on professional social work opinions

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.

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

• Job Description (PDF, 242.2KB)
• OH Risk ID (PDF, 144.8KB)
• A Great Place to Work (PDF, 2.1MB)
• Our People Promise and Charter (PDF, 5.8MB)
• Employee Benefits (PDF, 950.7KB)