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Job file: senior development officer

Job title: Senior development officer, communicating with children.

Who's doing it: Judith Ellis.

Where: National Children's Bureau.

Job description: Setting up, running and delivering a learning programme to social workers on how to communicate effectively with children during assessments of need. Developing a resource pack.

Skills/qualifications needed: The specification requested a skilled and experienced social work practitioner with a strong commitment to child-centred working, significant experience of assessment practice and some experience of training development and project management.

What's good about the job? Being based at the NCB, I have access to a wealth of theory and ideas about everything to do with children. It is a chance to reflect on my practice and to promote positive change.

What's bad about the job? I do miss direct work with clients.

Pay: £33,000

Grade: NCB grade H (middle management).

What's the job like? First thing, I answer my emails. Then, unless it's a training day, I meet other professionals to discuss some aspect of my programme; use the internet or books and journals to find materials and articles; and design training materials. I feel strongly about the issue of children's right to participate in decisions affecting their lives. This is what drives the programme for me. Often social workers find it difficult to understand children or to know how to relate to them, so they try to get all the information from adults. In child protection cases, this can be dangerous. In the months ahead I will be going all over the country delivering training at local authorities. At the end of the programme, which lasts 15 months, I will organise and write a resource pack for social work professionals. It is still early days for this project but we will need to work quickly to complete it on time. When I started in November, they said I would have to "hit the ground running". How true!