Senior/Advanced Social Worker - Assessment

Location Walton on Thames
Job type Permanent
Salary £50,619 per year
Reference 162844

Sanctuary Personnel, an innovative and committed recruitment agency is currently looking for a dedicated and experienced Senior/Advanced Social Worker to work based in Walton, within the Assessment Team.

The salary for this permanent Senior/Advanced Social Worker role is £50,619 per annum.

Main Duties:

  • Management of triage of contacts to the service to ascertain whether contacts from families, members of the community and partner organisations meet the threshold for a statutory social work assessment of significant impairment of a child’s health/development or significant harm, with appropriate information from referrers and the consent of the family (except when over-ridden by a team manager to protect a child from further significant harm).
  • Provide an assessment of the needs of family members, their strengths and any risks to children’s health/development or significant harm to the child/ren and develop SMART plans that will meet the needs of family members and reduce risks to children, in conjunction with children and their families and in the most complex cases.
  • Work with partners to meet those needs and monitor progress via child in need and core group meetings involving families, young people, and relevant professionals.
  • Chair reviews of children in need cases, strategy discussions, permanency planning meetings and professional’s meetings on complex cases.
  • Conduct complex child protection investigations where a multi-agency strategy discussion considers there are grounds to believe the child has or is likely to suffer significant harm and to involve families in developing plans for change which will reduce the risk of significant harm and keep children in their families wherever possible.
  • Where children cannot be adequately cared for within their families or their families cannot be engaged to access services that would support them to change and the significant harm threshold is reached, to initiate discussions to seek agreement for s20 or initiate planned or emergency legal proceedings to ensure children are protected in line with departmental policy, procedures, and relevant legislation.
  • Work with colleagues in commissioning, fostering and adoption to identify high quality placements for children that will promote keeping children with their siblings and engage in timely care planning so children are placed in stable long-term homes where their health and development as well as education and training needs are supported, and they can strengthen their resilience to lead a happy and stable adult life.
  • Ensure that social work case records, assessments, plans and documentation for all children and young people for whom the worker is responsible are effectively maintained in line with practice standards and organisational policy and procedure.
  • Ensure that in all aspects of work that the views, feelings and wishes of children, young people and their parents /carers are taken seriously and used to appropriately inform their care plans and development and performance of services.

Requirements of the Senior/Advanced Social Worker:

  • Degree or equivalent in social work.
  • Current Social Work England registration.
  • Recent post-qualifying experience within frontline social work.
  • In depth and up to date applied knowledge of relevant national and local policy, statutory guidance, and legislation in relation to the provision of social care services.
  • Understanding of the principles of confidentiality and information governance and how these apply to social care, and an understanding of diversity and how it affects practice
  • Competent in the use of basic IT skills.
  • Substantial experience in assessing the needs of, and undertaking direct work with children and young people, with a track record of improving children and young people's lives in a UK statutory setting.

Contact:
This Senior/Advanced Social Worker job is advertised by Jenifer Watts; 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.