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Practice Manager - Assessment & Intervention

Employer
West Sussex County Council
Location
England, West Sussex, Crawley
Salary
£47351 - £50725 per annum
Closing date
10 Dec 2020

Job Details

Salary: £47,351 - £50,725 (Plus £626 Crawley Weighting Allowance)

Working Pattern: Full-time

Location: Crawley Library, Crawley

We're looking for an experienced frontline social work manager to join our Assessment and Intervention team in Crawley. The successful candidates will be empowered to be part of, and supporting, a social work team making a difference to the lives of West Sussex children.

Our Assessment and Intervention service is a fast paced, busy and supportive duty team completing child and family assessments, Section 47 enquiries, Child Protection and Child in Need work whilst planning for permanence from day one. Signs of Safety is the framework we use to support our social work practice and we are proud to not only have collaborated with Eileen Munro and Andrew Turnell, but also have an acclaimed leader of Signs of Safety within our management group, to embed this framework across the service.

Assessment and Intervention is at the forefront of continuing to implement and develop how this framework can produce the best outcomes for children and ensure they are safe, and their voice is heard within all the work we do. Our teams continue the development of targeted Child in Need support, with specialist social workers supporting children under Section 17 and focussing on ensuring clear plans and interventions with families. We ensure strong local links with our Early Help colleagues to promote local community support for children and families when social care no longer needs to be involved.

As a Practice Manager within Assessment and Intervention, you will be ready to demonstrate great practice, share good ideas and expertise. We are looking for emotionally intelligent, organised, resilient individuals who can evidence the value they could add to our team. You will make sure that children and young people right across West Sussex are safeguarded and protected, whilst also being responsible for motivating and leading a small group of social workers and other staff; providing expert supervision, mentoring, coaching and supporting the development of reflective and relationship based practice.

Required experience and skills

Key Skills:

  • Ability to make sound pragmatic problem-solving decisions, which will have a wider service The ability to provide comprehensive professional advice and support within the service specialism, including tackling difficult problems of a technical, professional, resource or people related nature.
  • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to influence the actions of others and communicate information which may be complex and contentious. This will include the ability to develop effective long-term relationships both with other teams across WSCC and external partners enabling the achievement of high-quality outcomes.
  • Effective people and performance management skills and the ability to provide direction and motivate and inspire the team to deliver quality professional practice. You will use data to identify and address performance challenges, manage throughput of work, and manage team performance. The ability to use supervision, appraisal and data to have reflective and crucial conversations with staff to identify performance and improve practice.
  • Able to manage self, is self-aware and understands impact of work on self and others and responds constructively to situations. Understands the need for emotional intelligence/resilience, specifically in relation to risk, ensuring that there is a positive balance between perceived risk and protection from harm where necessary. Ability to respond calmly and appropriately to situations where others are in a stressful or anxious situation.
  • Able to reflect on practice and learn from experience and feedback, taking responsibility for own performance and being proactive in relation to own work and professional development. Ability to challenge existing practices and identify innovative solutions within the required framework. Further to that the ability to interpret and manage political influences on social work practice and to work with peers and managers to address potential impacts.

Qualifications and experience:

  • A recognised Social Work qualification e.g. Degree in Social Work, DipSW, CQSW or equivalent as recognised by the relevant professional body.
  • A recognised post qualifying award in Social Work or demonstrable evidence of continuous professional development at a similar level.
  • Registration with the relevant professional registration body and maintaining registration with that body.
  • Demonstrable experience of delivering or co-ordinating a quality customer focused service to others.
  • Experience in dealing with significant issues, for example management of complex child protection matters, staff under performance, managing resources to address team performance priorities through allocation of limited resources.
  • Evidence of developing, empowering and leading teams to achieve performance improvements and service developments. Evidence of planning and management of resources and performance over the long term.
  • Experience of managing/leading staff.
  • Experience of managing a small budget and/or contributing to financially related decisions on larger spends, how cost-effective decisions are made and operating within the financial constraints.
  • Experience of supporting initiatives in a political environment.
  • Demonstrable knowledge of how to improve practice and performance in a supportive, positive way.
  • Valid, full driving licence.

Company

West Sussex County Council

Children First in West Sussex


West Sussex is a beautiful county located on the South Coast of England. Within easy reach of sandy beaches and rolling hills, West Sussex also boasts a perfect balance of cosmopolitan towns such as Crawley and Horsham, and flourishing market towns like Chichester. West Sussex has so much to offer and is a wonderful place to live, work and play.

At West Sussex County Council, we see the workplace as an environment where people can be themselves, perform to the best of their ability and achieve their potential to deliver services to our residents living in West Sussex. Our staff are our greatest asset and we are committed to the employment, retention and career development of talented individuals.

Social work is a challenging career, and we recognise that to achieve excellent outcomes for our residents, our people need to feel supported, developed, and recognised. Our Social Workers change lives, supporting children and families from the very start and at every step of the way. Our social work teams are based at offices across Chichester, Bognor, Worthing, Horsham, Crawley and Burgess Hill.  


Family Safeguarding Teams

We are particularly interested in hearing from Social Workers interested in joining our Family Safeguarding Teams. These teams work with children and families at the point in their journey where there are safeguarding concerns and act to reduce those risks. They play a key role in child protection, child in need cases and working with families to keep children safe.

The Family Safeguarding Teams undertake meaningful, transparent direct work with children and their families ensuring the most positive outcomes and our diverse practice teams work within a nurturing environment where successes are celebrated and individuals within the team are supported to grow and develop.

There are 6 service teams working geographically, with each managed by a Service Manager. They in turn support 4 to 5 practice teams led by Team Managers. We have a Court Progression Officer leading on our improvement plan for our children within the public law outline. There is a cohort of approximately 1958 children that our Family Safeguarding Teams support ,from pre-birth to 18 years, and children subject to child protection plans and within the public law outline. Some child in need work is undertaken as children step down from child protection planning and transition on to our universal or Early Help service.

If you are passionate about delivering excellent social work and making a difference, have a look at some of the exciting opportunities we currently have in Children’s Services.

Interested in finding out more about West Sussex?

Visit www.westsussex.gov.uk/childrenfirst

Company info
Website
Telephone
0330 222 6234
Location
County Hall
Chichester
West Sussex
PO19 1RG
GB

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