Senior Practitioner (18.5 hours per week) - Ref: CH24820
Salary: G10 £37,516 - £42,398 per annum (pro-rata for hours worked)

We are recruiting a Senior Practitioner to join our Connected Carers and SGO Support Team.  We want our staff and management teams to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve, and welcome applications from people of all cultures, ethnicities, religions and genders.

These are exciting times for Walsall Children’s Services. We are committed to achieving the best outcomes for children and families, and doing this through creating the conditions where great social work practice can flourish. We want you to join us on this journey, and are looking for people who have the skills and experience to successfully assess connected families in our area.

What we are looking for

• We want skilled assessors who can assess friends and family carers to enable children to stay in their extended families. You will be part of the wider fostering team, carry out some Supervising Social Work and support SGO carers.
  Experienced Form F assessors / safeguarding practitioners that are good at assessments and understand the needs of children who have come from traumatic backgrounds all encouraged to apply.

We have staff from a variety of backgrounds within our team. We support each other to improve practice and do the right thing for Walsall Children.  We work closely with the safeguarding teams, doing joint visits, writing court reports and we encourage the whole team to take up develop opportunities.

Our journey
Walsall Children’s Social Care has recently launched the Family Safeguarding Model with support from the ‘Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme’ and investment from the Department for Education. This has involved creating Family Safeguarding Teams that include Social Workers, and Specialist Practitioners to support parents experiencing domestic abuse, mental health problems or drug and alcohol misuse. This approach is about:

• Safeguarding children, where possible by working with and supporting their parents and family
• Providing a response, needs led service to children and families
• Shared group case supervision and co-working within the Family Safeguarding Team, and close, supportive relationships with partners
• The use of tailored parenting support and programmes
• A shared ethos and approach based on Motivational Interviewing Skills
• A more effective approach to recording based on the use of a whole family workbook and modular programme of work with families

All staff will receive training in the model and support in its implementation. We are now 2 months since going live, and so there is still time to join from the start of our journey. The purpose of Family Safeguarding is to help provide the conditions for doing Child and Family Social Work in a safe, supported way that enables great practice. This is what we are working towards in Walsall. Family Safeguarding is a part of our wider transformation journey.  Our ‘Walsall Right 4 Children’ transformation programme encompasses all Children’s Social Care, Education, Early Help and our partner agencies to make sure that the right children and young people receive the right help at the right time. This year, we have remodelled our services to move into a locality way of working to enable Social Workers to be part of the communities they serve and build stronger links with partners and communities. We also have created a bespoke adolescent service ‘Turning Point’ and launched a Family Drug and Alcohol Court with partners in the region.

What do we offer you?
By choosing to join us in Walsall you will receive a package of benefits and support. These include:

• A generous annual leave entitlement offering a minimum 27 days leave per year plus 9 concessionary days and in addition to a flexible working scheme that allows up to a further 12 days leave per year
• Access to an award winning pension scheme
• All staff receive training in Restorative Practice and Motivational Interviewing, as well as other key methods and tools to support family-led decision-making and relationship-based social work.
• We are committed to a staff wellbeing programme to recognise and support our staff, recognising that to keep children safe and support families, social workers need to feel safe and supported
• We have a career pathway that moves from an ASYE programme recognised as a national example of good practice, to a Core Training offer for all Social Workers, to new Practice Supervisor Pathway and Team Manager Programme to support more experienced Social Workers in their development.
• This is part of a focused approach to staff development in our Annual Performance Conversations, and opportunities for individual continuing professional development activities linked to specialisms and interests, as well as the Practice Educator PEPs Level 1 and 2.
• We hold regular celebration events, service and practice development days, and staff engagement forums. We want to hear from you and improve and grow based on what you tell us! 

We have a genuine commitment to equality of opportunity for all staff – we aim to employ a representative workforce that reflects the communities we serve.  We are proud to be aiming high and looking to do things differently, and to focus on doing the main, fundamental things we need to get right to achieve the right outcomes for children and families, and to make Walsall a great place to do social work. We hope that you will join us on this journey.

The post holder must have a social work qualification or equivalent and must be registered with Social Work England.  For further information please contact Mandy Layton by email at Mandy.layton@walsall.gov.uk.

View Job Description and Employee Specification

View Information for Applicants

Please note that the ‘Apply’ link will open a new website (Taleo Careers), for which you will need create an account to enable you to apply.

Closing date for applications: Wednesday 24th February 2021

This post is covered by the Government’s Code of Practice on the English Language Fluency Duty for public sector workers. The postholder will be required to communicate verbally with customers and provide advice and/or information in accurate spoken English.

Walsall Council takes seriously the responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all the children and young people entrusted to our care and it is our expectation that all staff will share this commitment. We will ensure continuous development and improvement of robust recruitment processes and procedures that promote a culture of safeguarding amongst our workforce. Completion of an enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check is a requirement for working with children and young people. Note: Applicants appointed to posts that require an enhanced DBS clearance must declare any periods of time that they have lived, studied or worked abroad and be prepared to provide an Overseas Criminal Records Certificate (OCRC) or a Statement of Good Conduct (SOGC) relating to anytime they were overseas.