Senior Social Worker - Child Protection

Location Brent
Salary £35 - £37.01 per hour
Discipline

Job Purpose:
1. To provide a high quality and effective social work service to respond to the needs of
children and their families in a timely manner and within statutory guidelines,
Directorate policies, standards and guidelines.
2. To assess need, plan and deliver focused intervention to safeguard and protect children and promote positive outcomes. Working to best practice whilst promoting integrated agency approaches for the benefit of children and young persons.
3. Manage and monitor a workload of complex cases as directed and organise work activities taking into account the need to prioritise tasks and responsibilities, ensuring statutory responsibilities are undertaken for children including visiting children, arranging reviews, reporting to court, delivering within timescales and meeting other national and local performance targets.
4. Responsible for planning and providing a range of appropriate services and
interventions to meet the needs of children, their families and carers by assessing, arranging, coordinating, and monitoring provision within delegated levels of responsibility and in accordance with the required local and national policies, procedures, standards and legislation.
5. To contribute to service development as required. Take responsibility for own professional development by attending supervision, appraisals and learning and training opportunities and maintain ongoing continuing professional development to ensure the requirements of the HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council) registration are met whilst working in an effective and efficient manner


Principal Accountabilities and Responsibilities:
General Duties
1. To provide a service to children in need, their families, children looked after and care leavers in line with statutory requirements and departmental priorities.
2. To undertake training as required in the overall interests of the service and as part of career development.
3. To participate in team meetings, staff forums and work collaboratively as a team member.
4. To participate in duty rota within specific role.
5. Respond to public and other agencies by telephone, correspondence and direct contact in order to provide a service within departmental priorities and timescales.
6. Liaise with relevant external agencies e.g. police, health authority etc.
7. Liaise with relevant colleagues in other Divisions and Council Departments.
8. To be responsible for individual client case planning in line with the professional standards of the Department.
9. To be active in implementing the Council’s equal opportunities policy/in professional practice and service delivery.
10. To be responsible for professional decisions within the Department’s priorities framework and in relation to specific procedural guidelines.
11. To undertake service development tasks as appropriate.
12. To familiarise with departmental policies and procedures.
13. Carry out duties with due regard to the Council’s Customer Care, Equal Opportunities, Information Governance, Data Protection and Health and Safety policies and procedures.
14. Undertake any other duties commensurate with the general level of responsibility of this post.
Specialist Child Care Duties
15. To provide a preventative and rehabilitative service within the criteria of the Children Act, facilitating appropriate resources where necessary to enable children to remain with their own families.
16. To assess situations where children are referred as being in need of protection, accommodation or care provision, being particularly mindful of equal opportunities issues.
17. To plan quickly and effectively, involving carers as partners in the decisions made in respect of children.
18. To maintain children with their own families wherever possible. Where natural family circumstances have irretrievably broken down to plan a secure and permanent home for children, ensuring they have clear information about their own background and contact with natural relatives wherever possible.
19. Understanding of permanency planning/kinship care within the context of care proceedings
20. To provide an emergency service for assessment and action where children are referred as being at risk.
21. To liaise with other sections of the Department and other relevant agencies to ensure that good childcare practice is carried out in line with departmental policy including groups and agencies.
22. To participate in relevant training and monitoring consistent standards of work.
Senior Social Worker, Child Care Duties
23. To facilitate and undertake timely comprehensive risk assessment of children and families and to carry a complex caseload involving multi-disciplinary work. This includes court work, child protection and permanency planning.
24. Adherence to the Family Justice Review and required court timescales.
25. To provide an excellent model of social work practice.
26. To undertake specific tasks for absent colleagues on cases requiring action under the direction of a team manager.
27. Chairing meetings, where appropriate, under direction of a team manager for the service users and less experienced staff.
28. To undertake student supervision and to be active student practice teachers.
29. To take responsibility for updating specialist knowledge in a relevant area, developing practice, creating and updating information systems.
30. To represent the Department on working groups or liaison meetings involving Health, Housing and other agencies.
31. To contribute to local and departmental training on practice issues in line with departmental policies and procedures, in light of research finding sand in line with the Divisional Training Strategy.
32. To supervise Social Work Assistant by agreement with the Team Manager, and based on the priorities of the service. (Senior Social Workers will only be able to supervise Family Support Workers after supervising at least 2 student placements).
33. To maintain accurate records, including using IT
34. To provide high quality services which are cost-effective and appropriate to the specific needs of the families.