Social Worker-Children- Assessment

Location Knowsley
Salary £33.00 - £35.00 per hour
Discipline
2 x Family Reunification Social Work posts – Non-Case Holding
Job Description:
To support decision making in relation to the appropriateness of permanence plans including reunification for children and young people. This will include supporting the social workers with undertaking assessments, chairing family network meetings, and directly working with children and families to achieve positive outcomes.
Role:
This is a non-case-holding role, and there maybe expectations of attending Court. We need practitioners who are able to undertake comprehensive assessment including parenting assessments, viability assessments and assessment to enable children to be reunified home. These assessments will assist in decision making for Children to return home to their parents or family members.
As a reunification social worker your assessments will need to consider the current risks and associated protective factors whilst also identifying the likelihood of sustained change within the child’s timescales.
The successful candidate will have prior experience of undertaking assessments using the Framework of assessment and have knowledge and understanding of the principals of the NSPCC Reunification framework.
You will understand the impact of trauma both on parents capacity and on the child’s needs and be able to ascertain if the parent(s) has capacity to meet the needs of the individual child. You will have experience of working with children and their families and undertaking pieces of work used within court proceedings which require excellent report writing skills and evidence based analysis.
You will require the skills to overcome barriers to engagement during the assessment process and tailor your assessments to the learning styles of parents.
Your assessments will draw upon the knowledge of other professionals working with the child and their family and exploring the informal support networks available to the parents to assist them in the parenting role.
A key part to the role will be working in collaboration with the child’s allocated worker and contribute to care planning.
PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Working with the legislative, regulatory and policy framework
• Complete court paperwork, including risk assessments, viabilities and SWET’s to present a reunification plan to the courts for permanency plans to be agreed.
• Liaising with families, other agencies and professionals as appropriate to ensure the needs of children/young people and their families are met.
• Identifying unmet need and drawing it to the attention of Managers in the Service and assisting in the collection of data as required.
• Implement Reunification plans, this will include work outside office hours.
• Providing accurate information on available options in response to queries and arranging for more specialist information to be made available when appropriate.
• Organising and chairing Family network meetings and complex meetings ensuring appropriate plans are prepared and reviewed.
• Preparing for and participate in supervision and personal development reviews with line manager, and identify personal development and training needs to maintain registration.
• Support Social Workers to undertake their responsibilities, in relation to care planning for children and young people.
• Maintaining up to date recording on the electronic files, and relevant documents as required by the directorate to deliver good standards for practice.