Kirklees Council Jobs Near Me – Senior Practitioner

An exciting opportunity has arisen!

Under the SEND transformation agenda, we are looking for a Senior Practitioner who understands the importance of the Preparing for Adulthood transition from children’s services into adults, who has an in depth understanding of SEND, experience of working within a Multi-Disciplinary setting and most importantly have a passion for working within a team who supports young people and their families from the age of 14 – 25 years with SEND needs.

At the moment, the team you will be joining is currently known as the Specialist Adult Pathway Team (SAPT) but it will be changing it’s name to Preparing for Adulthood team once successful recruitment of key posts has been completed.

As a Council with its eye on the future we are investing in this important service and have created additional social work capacity in our Specialist Adult Pathway Team. We are looking for experienced Social Workers to join us!!

This will then allow us to fully begin to meet one of our aspirations which is the creation of a Preparing for Adulthood Team.

This team is based within an All Age Disability Service which comprises of:

• Community Learning Disabilities Team,
• Specialist Adult Pathway Team,
• MyLife,
• Enablement,
• Shared Lives,

As a service we pride ourselves on supporting each other. We are approachable, supportive and celebrate our successes as a service and not as individuals. Achieving change and positive outcomes for people requires team work. The Service has a culture of working together and managers have an open door (although virtually at the moment), regular advice surgeries and are willing to listen; we’re an experienced service, we all pull together to support each other and share our expertise.

SAPT workers have the benefit of getting to know a young person and their family as a secondary worker from 14+, building trusting relationships, ascertaining the young persons wishes, feelings, aspirations for the future and supporting them with preparing for adulthood. When the young person turns 18, the SAPT worker becomes the primary worker for the young person and continues to support them along their preparing for adulthood journey.

As a Senior Practitioner you will also be responsible for promoting the development of high-quality practice standards of social work providing leadership and professional wisdom to colleagues. And part of this role will include providing support, advice and mentoring to Social Workers and Community Assessment and Support Officers within the team (please see the attached job profile for more details).

You will be responsible for completing holistic strengths based assessments of young people with disabilities and/or additional needs and assessment of their carers’ needs. You will arrange and/or deliver services to meet identified support needs and reassess needs as appropriate. The Strengths based approach aims to meet the identified individual outcomes for each Service user by working very closely with partner agencies including the NHS by undertaking Continuing Health Care screening and working closely with the local CCG and Education to ensure young people have an holistic assessment that accurately reflects their support needs as they transition over into adult services.

We are looking for dedicated, hard working and a person centred person to join our expanding team, who have experience of working with children and/or adults with disabilities, including multi-disciplinary working, knowledge of the Care Act, SEND, Personalisation and delivering a high quality service to our service users and carers

We are committed to providing our social workers with exceptional levels of support, from a comprehensive induction through to continuous personal and professional development. We provide and encourage you to make the most of the high-quality opportunities we offer. We’re focused on your own personal and professional development; we’ll support you to enhance your skills and practice and be the best you can be. We have an established career structure in place to help you get where you want to be in your career.

Benefits

• Generous annual leave entitlement
• Ongoing Training and Career development
• Excellent pension scheme
• A range of family friendly polices
• We offer a wide range of well-being initiatives including a cycle to work scheme and discounted KAL membership
• Flexible working
• Friendly, supportive and approachable team members and managers

What the team say about the role

“I absolutely love my role as a Social Worker within the Specialist Adult Pathway Team. There are lots of training opportunities within the Local Authority, to ensure you are a confident worker and improve your personal development. There is a great atmosphere in our team, and lifelong friendships can be made in the course of one’ s employment here. Including supportive management and caring colleagues. There are never 2 days the same, it is varied and fast paced, whilst ensuring you are learning something new or interesting”.

You must hold a recognised Social Work Qualification and be registered with the SWE.

Travel is an essential part of this job and therefore it would be extremely difficult for you to do your job effectively if you did not use a car for all or most of the time. It is essential that you hold a full and valid driving license and it is expected that you will either use a council vehicle or your own car (exceptions can be made for disabled applicants).

An enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check will be required for this job. A conviction may not exclude candidates from appointment but will be considered as part of the recruitment process.

If you require further information or would like to discuss the role please contact Lauren James-Kinder on 01484 456997.