As Director of Children’s Services, I am passionate and care about the rights and needs of all children and young people. Enabling and supporting children and young people to aspire, achieve and believe in themselves, regardless of the adversity they may have faced is the ultimate ambition and outcome I want for them. To achieve this outcome, I am equally passionate on improving services for Dudley Children and Young people. It is clear there is a real commitment from politicians, partners and staff to making a real difference to ensure that children are at the heart of everything we do. Dudley Council is committed to protecting vulnerable children and families in need of support and protection.

Catherine Driscoll, Director of Children’s Service

Hours: 37 hours per week

Salary: Grades 8 to Grade 10

Dudley is an ambitious local authority and a great place to develop your career.

Our transformed Children’s Services put children’s needs at the very heart of all that we do and we are looking for passionate, innovative, dedicated and determined social workers to join new teams and help us deliver better outcomes for the children and families we serve.

Children’s Services brings together approaches across social care, public health and education. Multi-disciplinary teams deliver the wide range of initiatives to support families and provide early help.

Alongside our learning and development offer, through our Centre for Professional Practice, we have developed a career pathway for all social workers. Our well established programme supports not only newly qualified social workers but also invests in continuing professional development through our membership of www.researchinpractice.org.ukWest Midlands Teaching Partnership and our bespoke and enhanced training programme.

This offer is proving to be a progressive and exciting path for staff that is swiftly seeing performance improvements and innovations that are making big differences to our children, young people and families. Our reshaped council and reshaped service offers a great opportunity for you to influence and develop as we accelerate the pace of change. We want the best people to travel with us and to reap the rewards along the way.

If you require any further information regarding this exciting opportunity do not hesitate to email Clare Joyce on claire.joyce@dudley.gov.uk

For further information on Dudley Children's Social Care please go to www.childrenservicesjobs-dudley.org.uk/

We are recruiting Qualified Social Workers with a minimum of 12 Months post-qualifying experience.

We aim to create an inclusive working environment where everyone can achieve a healthy work/life balance. We are serious about our responsibility for personal and professional development and look to ensure that staff are equipped with the skills, knowledge and experience to succeed. The Councils Benefit Package is designed to boost and maintain the health, wellbeing and general quality of life of all our staff.

Security and support at work

We offer a wide range of benefits, to ensure that staff are paid fairly for the work they undertake and have the flexibility to enjoy a great work life balance. We offer:

• A competitive salary package, including a career progression scheme
• A range of flexible working options, including flexitime and home-working, dependent on service requirements
• A generous holiday allowance and special leave provisions
• The Local Government Pension Scheme
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme – whatever life throws at you, we are committed to supporting you
• Bullying and Harassment and Dignity at Work policies to protect your everyday working life

Your professional future

We invest in our staff, to enable them to develop personal and professional skills and progress in their Social Work Career.

All new employees receive a comprehensive induction, training and development programme, with regular opportunities to update their skills and achieve their full potential. We welcome fresh thinking, recognise real talent and encourage innovation and ingenuity.

We train staff at all levels. We have ahuge range of training opportunities, through the Centre for Professional Practice Service. We encourage and support Continual Professional Development, with opportunitiesto attend external training, secondment opportunities, and earn extra qualifications through the Apprenticeship Levy.

A summary of all benefits for staff is attached.

We are recruiting Qualified Social Workers with a minimum of 12 Months post-qualifying experience.

If you have been qualified as a Social Worker less than 12 months, or have not yet completed your ASYE programme, and are interested in working at Dudley Children’s Services then please contact our Centre for Professional Practice who will be able to advise of any vacancies available and describe the ASYE Programme on offer, please contact CPP@dudley.gov.uk and a member of the Team will contact you directly to discuss.

The following link has information about the ASYE programme and a link to the handbook:

https://www.dudleycpp.org.uk/careerprogression-ld

If you have previously been registered as a social worker in England but your registration has lapsed, and you would like to restore your registration we would love to hear from you.  Email the Centre for Professional Practice  cpp@dudley.gov.uk and a member of the team will contact you to talk about our 'return to social work' scheme.

So that we can demonstrate Dudley’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and to improve bias in the recruitment process that could create barriers for candidates. Your personal data will be anonymised when you apply, to ensure that you comply with our anonymisation process please ensure you have removed your name and date of birth from any attachments prior to uploading them to your application.

Online application forms will only be accepted for this vacancy, online facilities for jobs are available at public libraries within the Dudley Borough.

If you require support completing an online or paper application form and or interview techniques, please contact Dudley Adult and Community Learning on 01384 818 143 or acl@dudley.gov.uk who can support with Digital Skills and Job Applications.

If you have a disability and require assistance in making an application please contact the HR Resourcing Team via

If you are experiencing a problem whilst applying for a position, please follow the link below to the WM Jobs Help Page in the first instance https://help.wmjobs.co.uk/

If the WM Jobs Help Page does not resolve your issue then please contact the HR Resourcing Team via HR.Resourcing@dudley.gov.uk

Dudley Council will check the information that you have provided against any details already held for accuracy and completeness. The Council will check, share and cross match your information both internally within the council and with external organisations to protect public funds and prevent or detect crime, only where the law allows us to do so. The Council’s full Privacy and Disclaimer Statement can be accessed on the website at http://www.dudley.gov.uk/

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Supporting documents
CPF
Benefits List
JD & PS
EVP