SENIOR SOCIAL WORKER

CHILDREN IN CARE SERVICE

£54,083 – £57,116 (includes market supplement)

Hybrid role – Newham Dockside E16 2QU

Closing date: 24/04/2024 at 23:59 - please apply ASAP as we may interview shortlistable candidates before the closing date.

Job Description

WE ARE NEWHAM

We’re a vibrant, dynamic, culturally rich London Borough with a young population and limitless potential. We’re a challenging yet rewarding place to practise social work, with the networks in place to enable you to be the best social worker you can be and make a real difference to our children in care and their families.

We’ve been working tirelessly to establish a Centre of Excellence for Children’s Services through investment, co-production and by continuously developing our 'Circles of Support' practice model; centring on systemic and restorative practice and a specialist support offer for our practitioners. 

Ofsted described Newham as having a positive culture of learning and development and we always try to develop talent in-house. We promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023 alone, and have put more than 47 practitioners through further education since 2020. We value your development and at Newham career progression is reality for many. 

We understand that social work can be a challenging yet ultimately very rewarding profession that makes demands of you personally and professionally. In Newham we value your wellbeing and ensure that you have the support needed for a better work/life balance through a remote working offer when you are not visiting your children and families, a pleasant, modern office space for when you are in the office, a flexible working policy where all requests are considered, and a clinical offer to support you to do your best work. 

Our recent (Jan 24) visit from Ofsted was focused our services for Children in Care and Care Leavers, we’d love for you to read the positive report here before considering joining us.

ABOUT THE JOB

Social Work in Newham is underpinned by a culture of Systemic and Restorative practice with high quality relationships at the heart of our approach. Our children in care service work closely with children and young people who are in the care of the local authority, from care proceedings, during placements, to eventual transfer to leaving care services or hopefully returning to family. 

Senior Social Workers have a vital case holding role delivering high quality practice to best serve our children and families, whilst supporting lesser experienced colleagues. SSWs will potentially take on responsibility for supervising social work students on placement at Newham so we welcome Practice Educators, though this is not essential for this role. You’ll be joining an experienced and friendly service, where progression is a genuine possibility; we’ve seen two Senior Social Workers make the upwards step to Assistant Team Manager, and one Assistant Team Manager to move up to Team Manager, within the last 12 months.

We value our practitioners and understand the importance of supporting your learning, development and ambition, as well as your wellbeing. We have a bespoke offer through our very own clinical service and support to social work teams is provided following duty week through our ‘Duty Debrief’ meeting. Our embedded systemic family psychotherapist facilitates group discussion and the processing of the duty week experience, and it is an opportunity to share observations among the team, to identify and address challenges, and to prioritise staff wellbeing. The family therapist is also available for joint work with social workers on visits and consultations. Our social workers have fed back that this offer has enhanced their practice and development and helped them with embedding systemic practice into the service. 

ABOUT YOU

You have at least 3 years’ post qualified experience and an understanding of working effectively within a diverse urban community, with particular career focus on supporting looked after children. 

We’re looking for people who have a genuine interest in a restorative, relationship based practice model drawing on systemic thinking to inform your approach to building effective relationships with children, families and communities. We do require court work experience (and confidence) to enter this service at Senior Social Worker level.

You share our ambition and energy in embracing new ways of working. You have high working standards and are conscious of your own professional development and that of those around you, especially less experienced and student social workers starting out on their social work careers. You are always open to learning and to helping others learn so that children and families can benefit from our best practice. You have experience working in a statutory looked after children focused service.

You will be a qualified social worker who is registered with Social Work England.

WHY WORK WITH US?

We’ve been working hard to make Newham a great place to practise social work.

• We’re a GOOD local authority focused on reaching excellence.
• Ofsted graded our senior leadership as OUTSTANDING.
• We offer genuinely flexible/hybrid working as long as children and families are supported.
• Stability: 100% of our Service Managers and 71% of Team Managers are permanent.
• Our firmly established practice model, Circles of Support, was recently nominated for the prestigious MJ Award for Innovation in Children’s Services and allows systemic, restorative practice to flourish.
• Career progression; we promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023.
• Social Care Academy – 47 social workers have studied for systemic higher education with us since 2020. Our Academy offer received significant praise from Ofsted.
• A competitive package for social workers of up to £54,083 (includes market supplement).
• Oyster card/parking permit for business use.
• Wellbeing service, leisure and discount benefits (Council scheme).
• Travel season ticket loan, cycle scheme, Local Authority pension.

TO APPLY

To apply please submit your CV and a supporting statement (1-2 sides of A4) through our online recruitment portal. 

Shortlisting decisions will be based on candidates' relevant experience and on candidates' suitability for the role in line with the person specification, as described in their supporting statement and CV.

Closing date: 24/04/2024 at 23:59 – please apply ASAP as we may interview shortlistable candidates before the closing date.

Interviews: ASAP

If you have any questions about the recruitment process or want to discuss joining Newham Children’s Services with one of our managers, please contact our Recruitment Team.

Additional Information

We are committed to creating an inclusive, anti-racist environment for all. When you apply for a job at Newham, your application is considered on its merits regardless of your age, disability, ethnicity, faith, gender identity or sexual orientation. If you share our vision and values, and you bring the experience and skills we need, that’s all that matters to us.

The London Borough of Newham has important responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. If you are appointed to a job that involves working with these groups, you may be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Please attach your supporting statement, explaining in no more than x2 A4 sides why and how you meet the criteria for this role.

We practice anonymised recruitment. Please ensure that you remove all personal information from any documents that you upload.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.

The London Borough of Newham is located only 5 miles east of London. It is well positioned with access to all major networks in London and the south east.  It is well connected  by public transport with, bus, tube and DLR. When the Crossrail service opens it will call at Custom House close to our council offices and also Stratford station and from there to central London. The London City Airport which serves major European cities is located at Royal Albert Dock. Newham has the youngest overall population in the country. It was one of the six host boroughs for the 2012 Summer Olympics and contains most of the Olympic Park including the London Stadium. It has a thriving arts quarter with the Theatre Royal Stratford East offering excellent entertainment for all the family. There is the University of East London which has two campuses in Newham, one in Stratford and another next to the regenerated Royal Albert Dock. It also has a large Westfield shopping Centre in Stratford which has all the major retailers there.

Newham has a large housing regeneration programme that will build over 1,000 new council homes by 2022.