Senior Practitioner-Children

Location Dudley
Salary £30.00 - £32.50 per hour
Discipline
The Dudley Exploitation Hub (DEx hub) is part of Dudley Children’s Services that specifically focuses on CSE, CCE, missing children and significantly vulnerable adolescents at risk.
The DEx hub comprises of:
• 3 social workers
• 3 family support workers
• 1 senior practitioner / missing manager
• 2 intensive family support workers working on aspects of missing providing Return Home Interviews
• 2 police officers
• 1 team manager
Children and young people are allocated to social workers within the DEx hub when their level of risk regarding exploitation is medium or high. These children and young people can be supported via a variety of plans including child protection, child in need, child in care and assessments, these plans are the responsibility of the allocated social worker within the DEx hub.
Exploited children and young people are supported by specialist social workers who are familiar with the local contextual safeguarding agenda and the associated resources and partners. Social workers are often allocated to support between 10-15 children and young people within the DEx hub.
These children and young people are supported by a specialist adolescent safety planning framework when extra familial harm is the primary safeguarding issue (My Safety plan).
The DEx hub includes specific police-identified resources dedicated to investigating and disrupting exploitation, particularly CCE and CSE.
The DEx hub make referrals to specialist therapeutic pathways of support for children and young people who are being exploited including Barnardo’s / PHASE trust and other recognised therapeutic providers.
The DEx Hub links in with health partners and facilitates access to health services to ensure children are supported to address their health needs.
A representative of the DEx hub attend a monthly Channel panel to ensure that prevent and radicalisation issues are considered through a lens of potential exploitation.
The DEx hub co-ordinates with a range of partners, the delivery of a daily missing triage, a weekly exploitation panel, ongoing MACE meetings and a monthly Child Exploitation Operational Group (CEOG). CEOG will consist of a multi-agency panel that responds to specific threats of exploitation.
The DEx hub works with management information analyst to co-ordinate and collate information from a range of agencies to identify children and young people at risk of exploitation and highlight vulnerable areas and hotspots.
The DEx hub works indirectly with children and young people who are involved in anti-social behaviour and low-level criminal behaviour as part of group. Through this process, a meeting, called a Disruption Meeting, takes place. All professionals working with the different young people identified as part of the group come up with a different recommendation on how they can work with the young people to help in interrupting the unwanted behaviour and find alternative activities that are more appropriate for the young people