Job Description
Advanced Practitioner - Grade 9 - £48,867 – £52,929pa (plus Market Supplement £4000)
At Havering, we are dedicated to creating the right conditions to support our social care practitioners to thrive, whether through our Face to Face model of practice, health and wellbeing initiatives or learning and development opportunities.
Why choose Havering?
- Competitive salary of up to £56,900 inclusive of £4,000 market supplement
- Subsidised parking at various council-owned car parks across the borough
- Generous local government pension scheme
- Access to a range of health and wellbeing activities and initiatives
- Training and development opportunities through our very own dedicated Social Care Academy specific to children’s and adults social care
- Access to accredited systemic training
- And much more
You can find out more about working for Havering Children’s Services by visiting www.havering.gov.uk/cypsjobs .
APPLICANT IS REQUIRED TO HAVE A CURRENT SOCIAL WORK ENGLAND REGISTRATION AND 2 OR MORE YEARS EXPERIENCE OF WORKING AS A SOCIAL WORKER WITH CHILDREN/YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES SERVICES.
About us
Havering is a London borough like no other. Located in Zone 6, we are in close proximity to both the hustle and bustle of the city and the surrounding Essex countryside. Boasting attractive green spaces and fantastic schools, it is no wonder that we have one of the fastest growing child populations in the country, and our community is becoming increasingly diverse. We are also unique in our political makeup, with Havering Residents’ Association working in co-operation with the Labour Group to make Havering an even better place to live and work. We have a strong corporate agenda and are embedding an increasingly insight-driven culture, which we think makes this a very exciting time to join us.
Our vision centres on supporting Havering’s children and families to lead happy, healthy lives. This means ensuring that every child has equal opportunities to thrive – accessing the highest possible levels of education and enjoying a stable, happy home. We believe firmly in empowering families to create sustainable change themselves, allowing them to find their own solutions.
We provide systemic care with lasting effects through our Face to Face model of practice – achieving sustainable positive outcomes. Havering’s ethos is embodied by our approach to fitting the system to the family rather than asking the family to fit to the system. This is done by working collaboratively with children, young people and families by having ongoing conversations so they can receive the most effective forms of intervention. With your expertise and motivation to support our children, young people and families, Havering is the ideal place for your social work career.
About the role
Our primary responsibility within the Assessment team is to offer parenting and family assessments for families who have complex and additional needs while working with our partner agencies to help families keep children safe. The families we assess often present with a range of complex issues. An essential part of our approach is understanding intergenerational factors affecting parental capacity and using our systemic model of practice to build resilience within families.
The Assessment Service is led by Helen Harding, finalist at the Social Work Awards 2022 in the Team Leader of the Year category, and consists of 4 teams who work on a duty rota basis. Each team covers a duty week once every 4 weeks with roughly 9 people in each team, made up of a team manager, advanced practitioners, and social workers
We promote a hybrid model of working for our social care staff, with a flexible approach involving working from our town hall campus/hubs. In this role, you are expected to work from our town hall campus during your team’s duty week, for team meetings and other development days – and at the request of your manager. We are encouraging increased face to face working for teams as we know how important this is for social workers and all meetings with children and family take place face to face.
Our services are diverse, and we have exciting and stimulating opportunities for everyone and various career pathways you can explore. No two days are ever the same, as you’ll be working with a number of children, young people and families who are all facing different and at times complex situations.
About you
As an Advanced Practitioner in our team you will work collaboratively with our families, partners as well as colleagues, ensuring a multi-disciplinary approach that aims to achieve excellent outcomes, which in turn supports our children and families to lead happy, healthy lives.
However, these are not the only skills and characteristics we are looking for. To be shortlisted for the position, you must be able to clearly evidence the following skills and experience within your application:
- Managing a caseload of complex and challenging cases, utilising specialist knowledge for appropriate interventions, needs and risk assessments, care planning and child protection investigations
- Ability to undertake high quality assessments, using child-centred, community focused, and multi-agency interventions to bring about positive change through developing effective relationships and to secure the best outcomes for children and young people.
- Experience in supporting management in maintaining and developing high standards across the team
- Offer coaching and mentoring within the team as well as effective case management and high quality written work
- Ability to ensure children and young people are adequately protected in line with Havering LSCB and departmental policy and procedures and relevant legislation.
Additional Information
For an informal discussion about the post, please contact on 01708 431182 or by email on Farida.Patel@havering.gov.uk This advert will close at 23:59 on the 23rd April 2023.
Havering strives to be a diverse and inclusive borough, a place where we can ALL be ourselves. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all staff, and applications from individuals are encouraged regardless of race, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, age, religion etc.
We want everyone to choose Havering. When you apply for a job with us, your application is considered on its merits regardless of your age, disability, ethnicity, faith, gender identity or sexual orientation. Our residents and service users come from all walks of life, and so do our employees. Find out what it means to Choose Havering .
The London Borough of Havering has important responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. If you are appointed to a job that involves working with these groups, you may be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
Please attach your supporting statement, explaining in no more than x2 A4 sides why and how you meet the criteria for this role.
We practice anonymised recruitment. Please ensure that you remove all personal information from any documents that you upload.