Guardian Careers – Social Worker

About the job

CROYDON COUNCIL

Job title: Social Worker; (Families Together – Edge of Care)

Department: Children’s Services

Location: Croydon Council (CR0)

Grade / Salary: Grade 11; £39,564 – £41,586

Grade 12; £42,585 – £44,628

Grade 14; £45,576 – £47,661

Hours of work: 36 per week / Monday – Friday

Contract type: Permanent

“Have you got the passion and drive to make positive changes in the lives of children and young people?”

The Opportunity

We have an exciting opportunity for a Social Worker, registered with Social Work England, to join our multi-disciplinary Edge of Care Team ‘Families Together’. You will be working closely with colleagues in CAMHS; Croydon University Hospital and community services to support young people presenting in crisis to avoid admission to hospital and enable children to be discharged safely.

We are expanding our team with a Social Worker who is experienced and passionate about practice which achieves positive change for children and families. This is an exciting opportunity to apply your experience to complex direct family work whilst developing your therapeutic skill set within a multi-disciplinary team also supporting and developing the practice of the team.

Why join us?

In Croydon, our Children’s Services has an established Systemic Practice model, experienced leaders, and high support for practitioners. Croydon people and staff are diverse, and we celebrate difference through focus on anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practice. We are committed to delivering excellent social work practice and services to our children and families. Over the past two years, the Families Together team has developed a model of working with families grounded in relationally based, trauma informed and systemic applications of practice. We have been able to demonstrate strong and successful outcomes against our objectives which evidences that our work has enabled many families to stay together and prevent adolescents from entering care. This success has led to further developing the team including the additional roles.

The Families Together Team work with adolescents and their families where there is a risk of the child entering the care system. We also work to reunify children back home to their families after a period of being looked after. Families Together offers an intensive service to families who are in crisis and where there is a high-risk context. We are driven by a value that all families have innate abilities, strengths, and resilience. We work with families to create new stories, build connections, and reduce risk/distress.

Families together is a fast-paced team where responsiveness, adaptability and flexibility are key. It involves building effective and collaborative professional relationships with partners, families, and young people quickly and often in the most challenging of circumstances.

As part of the development of the team, we will be working closely with colleagues in CAMHS to support collaborative and responsive assessments and plans to children and their families presenting in crisis at A&E, enabling children to be discharged from hospital quickly and safely.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone keen to broaden and develop their systemic skill set; contribute further to the development of a successful team in a new service and become part of a team committed to improving outcomes for children and families in Croydon. This role would suit someone wanting to develop their therapeutic and systemic skill set through direct work with families whilst retaining some statutory tasks and responsibilities.

Benefits Of Working For Croydon

• Highly competitive salary plus a Welcome payment of £5,000
• Annual retention payment of £2,500
• A pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 20%
• 31 days annual leave in addition to Bank Holidays
• Accredited Systemic Practice training, years 1 & 2 provided in-house
• A range of CPD opportunities Management development programmes
• Manageable caseloads Investment into your staff well-being
• Good management support for practitioners, regular supervision, group supervision led by systemic therapists and access to a clinical therapist to support your work directly.
• Hybrid working policy enabling work from home and flexible working approaches to support your work-life balance.

About You

We are therefore looking for candidates who have ability to:

• Build and deliver structured interventions that enable families to develop strengths and skills, build resilience and achieve positive, sustainable behaviour change.
• Devise and deliver a range of interventions which are evidence based and informed using ideas from systemic practice, motivational interviewing, solution focused and trauma informed practice models
• Deliver intervention and responses to families in the context of crisis and imminent family breakdown which focus on their safety and an immediate reduction of risk
• Work restoratively with a strong emphasis on supporting families to build connection and improve relationships between them. This involves helping families to develop shared goals for improving relationships, exploring communication and conflict resolution to avoid family breakdown
• Support and deliver practice around the reunification of children from care, working closely with family members, foster carers and social workers to ensure that children have a planned and safe return back to their families.
• Candidates will need to have post qualifying experience, including in a statutory child care setting. Prior adolescent, mental health or therapeutic experience is useful but not essential.
• Candidates will need to be able to demonstrate good experience, knowledge and skills of working with families via a relationally based practice model; being able to work with a complex and diverse range of needs and risks; and contributing to positive outcomes for young people and families.
• Candidates will need to have good knowledge and understanding of systemic and trauma informed practice ideas, relevant research and national developments, and policies relating to children’s social care.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone to contribute to the further development of a successful team, committed to improving outcomes for children and families in Croydon.

If you would like an informal conversation about this role, please contact Lucy Sullivan (Team Manager) at [email protected]

Recruitment and Selection Timeline

The closing date for applications is 23:59 on 6th November 2023

Shortlisting will take place WC 7th November 2023

Interviews will take place WC 14th November 2023

Disclaimer

Croydon Council is an inclusive employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community, we use a ‘blind’ recruitment approach to support inclusivity and welcome members of the global majority to apply. We will be pleased to consider applications from candidates seeking flexible working arrangements. As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the advertised role.

Croydon council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. The Successful candidate will be subject to an Enhanced DBS check which allows them to work with children.