Social Worker (Senior Practitioner Childrens) Foster Care

Location Swindon
Salary £33.01 - £35.80 per hour
Discipline
To undertake professional and comprehensive casework for a complex caseload of children and young people.  To maintain high professional standards and good overall knowledge of relevant legislation regulation and practice methods, ensuring that you are abreast of new developments. Provide guidance and support to less experienced staff to help them develop their professional skills and knowledge.  As lead professional, to contribute to the provision of good quality services which integrate government and local initiatives and guidance (including Working Together, ChildProtection procedures, Looked After Children’s processes, the Assessment Framework and Common Assessment Framework). 2 Key Accountabilities Casework  Manage an allocated caseload appropriate to the extensive experience of the Experienced Social Worker, to include complex assessments of children, families and parenting and other work to meet statutory requirements.  Work within Swindon Borough Council’s policies, procedures and good practice guidelinesin order to meet the needs of the children and families allocated.  Work with children and young people, families, carers and communities to help them make informed decisions, engender change enabling them to clarify and express their needs,and contribute to service planning.  Maintain up to date case notes and other records, utilising relevant IT systems, and write reports, including court reports, and give expert evidence in court.  Undertake specialist assessments, for your and other workers’ cases, for court proceedings, including parenting and kinship assessments.  Ensure that casework is up to date, comprehensively written up, and managed within agreed timescales.  Ensure your manager is kept fully appraised of problems arising from cases or work load and to seek advice as and when necessary.  When working with families, to recognise monitor and assess risk. To ensure information about risk is escalated to managers in a timely manner.  Develop and maintain positive working relationships with service users and other professionals.  Model good practice helping to set the expectations for others.  Where appropriate act as the duty worker for the team responding to queries and issues