Practice Academy Team Manager

Are you an experienced and qualified social worker who is passionate about learning and development? Do you have the skills and knowledge to lead a team of Senior Practitioners in education to deliver high-quality learning opportunities for social workers and other professionals in Birmingham Children’s Trust?

If so, we want to hear from you!

Our highly prestigious Practice Academy is a team that offers learning and development opportunities and support for all social workers in the Trust, pre and post qualification. Our Academy takes on the largest amount of newly qualified social workers in the region and has high success and retention rates. We offer many development opportunities from Step up to social work to apprenticeships, practice educator and return to social work.

We aim to continue to raise the standards and outcomes of social work practice by offering evidence-based and innovative learning solutions that meet the needs of our social work workforce. As social work is an ever-changing landscape, we as an Academy consistently learn, develop and adapt to meet these needs. Successful candidates will be innovative, driven and able to manage/understand “what good looks like” in order to support growth of our learning culture. 

As the Practice Academy team manager, you will be responsible for managing and developing our social work learning portfolio, ensuring that it reflects the current and emerging issues and challenges in the field. You will also oversee the quality assurance and evaluation of our social work learning programmes and ensure that they comply with the relevant professional and regulatory frameworks. You will lead and motivate a team of experienced and skilled senior practitioners who deliver and lead learning projects across the Trust. You will also contribute to the strategic planning and business development of the Learning Academy and foster effective partnerships and collaborations with external and internal stakeholders, such as other local authorities, universities, organisations and service users.

The practice academy manager will be able to share and support regional and national learning approaches to social work adding value with innovation and drive for improvement.

To be successful in this role, you will need to have:

• A recognised social work qualification and registration with Social Work England.
• Extensive post-qualifying experience in social work practice, preferably in a management or leadership role.
• Extensive knowledge and understanding of the social work profession, its values, ethics, standards and works in a relational way.
• Experience and expertise in designing, delivering and evaluating learning and development programmes for social workers and other professionals working with children and families.
• Excellent communication, presentation and facilitation skills, and the ability to engage and inspire diverse audiences.
• Strong leadership and management skills, and the ability to lead and develop a high-performing team.
• Ambition, innovation and drive, to support the growth and delivery of learning across the Trust, while promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in the work we do.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunities Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees - a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit.

We actively deliver services that are culturally responsive to the needs of the children, parents and carers we work with to deliver equality, diversity and inclusivity in all we do.