Family Finding Social Worker - Children Looked After Service

Location Wandsworth
Job type Permanent
Salary £44k per year
Reference 168446

Sanctuary Personnel, a leading and award winning recruitment agency is currently looking for an experienced and dedicated Family Finding Social Worker to work full-time based in Wandsworth, within the Children Looked After Service.

The salary for this permanent Family Finding Social Worker job is £44,000 per annum.

Duties:

  • Develop an innovative, flexible, high quality and timely family finding service for children whose plan is permanent fostering
  • Work collaboratively and flexibly with children and young people, children’s social care staff, foster carers and other stakeholders to place children in appropriate, nurturing permanent fostering families
  • Contribute actively to permanency planning processes on behalf of looked after children
  • Liaise and build strong relationships with Children’s Social Care, the Independent Reviewing Service, in house and independent fostering agencies and other stakeholders responsible for permanent fostering placements
  • Attend permanency planning meetings and provide expert advice and guidance
  • Collate information about the child’s early life experiences & their current behaviour & profile in order to improve placement choice
  • Design and produce children’s profiles, DVD’s etc to promote positive placement choice and outcomes
  • Ensure the child’s voice is central to planning, matching and placement
  • Undertake direct work with children and young people around their wishes and feelings regarding permanent fostering and placements
  • Responsible for co-ordinating, developing and delivering an innovative and creative family finding service
  • Working closely with the Placements Team, following up on enquiries and processing and sharing information in a sensitive secure way, with interested parties
  • Participate in matching meetings and produce high quality, analytical matching reports for fostering panels
  • Attend relevant meetings, looked after reviews and all other case discussions relevant to the child’s permanence journey
  • Attend permanency tracking meetings and provide the necessary updating information
  • Attendance and presentation of case matching at Fostering and Permanence Panel
  • Contribute to a quarterly report setting out the performance of the service
  • Participate in the creation and presentation of permanency-focused training and workshops
  • Undertake appropriate training both internal and external
  • Keep knowledge up to date of changing contexts at local and national level and take account of these in social care practice; modelling the social care role and contributing to the public face of the organisation
  • Ensure that the voices and views of children and young people are sought, heard and represented appropriately; and evidenced throughout the work
  • Lead the development and implementation of innovative ways of working, taking into account research and experience from own and other services
  • Work with the organisation to ensure that the Standards for Employers of Social Care Workers and Supervision framework is embedded across the service to maintain high standards of social care practice
  • Contribute to the continuous improvement of the services for children and young people in Wandsworth
  • Comply with relevant Codes of Practice, including the Code of Conduct and policies concerning data protection and health and safety
  • Adhere to security controls and requirements as mandated by the SSA’s policies, procedures and local risk assessments to maintain confidentiality, integrity, availability and legal compliance of information and systems
  • Promote equality, diversity, and inclusion, maintaining an awareness of the equality and diversity protocol/policy and working to create and maintain a safe, supportive and welcoming environment where all people are treated with dignity and their identity and culture are valued and respected
  • Attend meetings such as working groups and Partnerships outside of the normal working day

Requirements of the Family Finding Social Worker:

  • Recognised Social Work Qualification (CQSW, Diploma or Degree)
  • Current Social Work England registration
  • Understand children in the context of their life story and attachment history in order to accurately reflect their ongoing needs & identify a foster family who are capable of meeting those needs
  • Being open
  • Being supportive
  • Being positive
  • Knowledge and application of the legal, policy and practice framework including the related national minimum standards
  • Knowledge and experience of a Child’s Journey through care and understanding of this in relation to achieving permanency
  • Understanding of attachment and associated effects of early childhood deprivation and neglect
  • Racial awareness and understanding of the importance of a child’s identity within the context of their race, culture and life experiences
  • Sensitivity and empathy and respect for others
  • Understanding of vulnerability, equal opportunities and working within a culture of anti-discriminatory practice
  • Understanding of the impact of collating, processing and managing confidential sensitive information and the security aspects of the working environment
  • Flexibility, passion and motivation to meet the demanding needs of the service to improve outcomes for children with a plan for Permanent Fostering
  • Availability for weekend and evening working when needed
  • Flexibility to travel and work across London and outside London
  • Ability to communicate to a high standard at all levels, both verbally and in writing, with external agencies, individual practitioners in a multi-disciplinary setting
  • Ability to make and sustain professional working relationships with foster carers, looked after children and all external partners
  • Ability to work autonomously and prioritise and organise tasks
  • Excellent attention to detail and accuracy with the ability to compose, design and record written information about children
  • Proactive, organised and methodological, with an ability collate and understand and process sensitive information
  • Previous experience of working in a social work setting or with vulnerable children and families
  • Previous experience of working with children and young people in a statutory setting in relation to achieving permanency

Contact: 

This Family Finding Social Worker job is advertised by Zehnn Young; if you are interested in this position please click above to apply now.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, regretfully we are only able to respond to candidates who meet our clients' requirements.

As a pioneer of diverse recruitment, Sanctuary Personnel is proud to encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds as our pool of candidates is very much reflective of the clients that candidates will support within their role. This very much played a significant in previously winning ‘Best Candidate Care’ at the Recruiter Awards as well being a two-time finalist for the same award.

Sanctuary takes great pride in building candidate and client relationships that promote Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).

With recruitment consultants and all other employees undertaking annual online training on EDI and many other compliance training courses, Sanctuary is best-placed to undertake a fair and thorough selection process.

Reasonable Adjustments:

If you consider yourself to have a disability or require any reasonable adjustment during the recruitment process or within the workplace, please highlight this at the earliest opportunity. With this information, we will provide appropriate support to you throughout the process and into your work placement.