Team Manager (Children's) - Children Looked After

Role: Team Manager - Children Looked After

Salary: Grade L - £55,158 - £58,197 plus retention allowance of £4,971 per annum and travel allowance of £1,280 per annum

Contract: Permanent

Location: LBTH Town Hall, 106 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1BJ

“Social workers are highly positive about the leadership and organisational culture… Manageable caseloads, regular and reflective supervision and access to training and development opportunities through the social work academy are all helping to ensure a stable, high-quality workforce.”

“Leaders and managers are creative and innovative in addressing children’s needs for stability and care.”

This is what Ofsted had to say about our services for children we for care in our most recent focussed visit in July 2022. If you join us in this influential and visible role, this is the kind of child centred, visible leadership we would expect you to model. You will be committed to improving outcomes for the children we care for and supporting them to build bright and stable futures and will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have made a difference in them achieving permanence and positive outcomes.

A qualified Social Worker with full Social Work England registration, you may be an existing Team Manager looking for a fresh challenge in a new team and area of the child’s journey, or an experienced Senior Practitioner looking to develop your leadership and management skills. In either case, you will be a practitioner committed to restorative approaches and centring children and young people at the heart of your practice.

What does the team do?

The Children Looked After Service is made up of 4 teams and supports children up to 16 years old who come into the care of the Local Authority, under the Children Act 1989 and related legislation and working to the corporate parenting principles set out in the Children and Social Work Act 2017. This includes all court work from first hearing for children who become looked after, through to adoption proceedings where required. Therefore, you will need to evidence experience of managing complex court work.

As good corporate parents, we are ambitious for our children, working tirelessly to ensure they have safe, stable homes, are resilient and healthy, and achieve permanence at the earliest opportunity. You will be joining an ambitious, passionate and committed leadership team and we will expect you to share this commitment.

Using our Better Together practice framework underpinned by restorative practice principles, we have created the conditions for effective social work to flourish and for all our children to receive a good service. We believe in collaborative working with our partners to deliver effective support for our children and put the views and voices of our children at the heart of this, coproducing their plans and interventions with them as far as possible. We are not complacent in addressing the challenges we face, including budget pressures, and have the passion and commitment to deliver on them.

What will your role be?

In this challenging but rewarding role, you will lead and co-ordinate a fast-paced, high quality Children Looked After Team for young people aged up to 16 currently in the care of Tower Hamlets. You will be responsible for the overall performance of your team as well as support the Head of Service in service development.

Leading, supporting and developing your team to create a skilled, motivated, and effective workforce, you will also contribute to and deliver a service plan that has clear targets that improve outcomes for the children we care for. As Team Manager you will use your proven social work experience to have overall responsibility for a team of qualified Social Workers and Advanced Practitioners, overseeing quality assurance and performance management. Your team responsibilities will include recruitment, retention, development, and the allocation of workload, as well as supervision to ensure consistently high standards of work. You will lead investigations into any complaints from service users, relatives or carers and be responsible for the justifiable allocation of resources.

This is a great opportunity to make a difference to our children at a crucial time in their lives. It’s vital you have up to date and in-depth knowledge of relevant legislation and are familiar with new evidence-based research and developments, including the Government’s agenda for improving the experience, progress, and outcomes for children in care in various living arrangements.

The post will involve occasional travel around the UK and evening working in line with service user availability and duty arrangements. We work to a 35-hour week, and you will typically need to be office based 2 – 3 days per week. We are happy to discuss flexible working arrangements.

Benefits

In addition to our competitive salary offer, we can offer you working arrangements that will enhance your work-life balance and a generous holiday allowance of up to 29 days rising to 33 days with 5 years continual service and 8 bank holidays. You will work from our modern Town Hall offices based in Whitechapel, East London in the heart of our community. In addition, we offer a range of staff benefits such as membership of the Local Government contributory pension scheme, childcare vouchers, new technology scheme, and discounts at many leisure activities, restaurants, shops, and other establishments. A wide range of developmental opportunities is also offered via our Learning Academy and beyond.

Role Requirements

• You are an experienced Social Worker with a minimum of 5 years post qualifying experience, and with demonstrable experience of working with safeguarding, child protection, and children looked after procedures.
•  You will be able to handle challenges and evidence that you are committed to achieving positive outcomes for children in care.
• You have strong assessment and report writing skills and can analyse and interpret complex performance data and other information and use this to drive practice improvements.
• You will have evidenced experience of supervision of qualified social work staff.
• You will be a motivated innovator who is committed to anti-discriminatory practice and who has experience working with a diverse cohort of children and young people, including those with challenging and complex needs.

We welcome direct applications including candidates with lived experience, those interested in flexible working arrangements, and applicants who live in the borough.

We will not consider agency applications.

In completing your application, is it important that you address the personal statement questions evidencing how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification for this role.

For an informal discussion, please contact Leo Major, Head of Service on leo.major@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Timetable

Role closes: Sunday 10th November 2024

Shortlisting: Monday 11th November 2024

Panel Interview: Monday 18th November 2024

Additional Details

Tower Hamlets vision for our borough is that: people are aspirational, independent and have equal access to opportunities; we are a borough that our residents are proud of and love to live in; and we are a dynamic, outcomes-based council using digital innovation and partnership working to respond to the changing needs of our borough. We want people who aspire to our TOWER values: Together; Open; Willing; Excellent; Respect.

Tower Hamlets has a zero-tolerance approach to, and works to eradicate, all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marital status, status as a civil partner, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy and maternity and looks to employ a diverse workforce representative of those groups. We recognise that people can also be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. 

We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means applicants who declare a disability and meet the essential criteria for the post are guaranteed an interview. Care experience has also been adopted by the Council as an additional protected characteristic.

We welcome applicants interested in flexible working arrangements and also applicants who live in the borough