About the Role
We have exciting opportunities for confident and skilled Social Workers to work in the Children's Emergency Duty Team (CEDT) as sessional workers in Children Services. Our objective is to deliver the best outcomes in improving the quality of life for Children within Sutton, Merton, Kingston and Richmond for whom the service is provided
Reporting to a Team Manager, Social Workers within the CEDT are responsible for delivering our Out of Hours Service. Our team provide vital support to the service with the responsibility of working outside of standard office hours, during evenings, nights and at weekends to deliver our service in safeguarding children and young people. Working within the Care Act 2014, you will undertake carer's assessments and eligibility assessments whilst supporting planning and reviews. You will ensure appropriate advocacy or representation to ensure an individual's human rights are understood and promoted. Our work also covers daily enquiries to the team’s duty system, including initial safeguarding responses and protection planning as well as undertaking investigations. You will be working collaboratively with all relevant parties to ensure that the children and families enabled to live ordinary and fulfilled lives.
The Emergency Duty Team provides essential social work cover for children across 4 London boroughs. We offer a social work service to children and young people in the Borough who are living at home on a plan across the tiers of need. This is achieved by working in partnership with relevant agencies, children and young people, and their families.
Within the team's geographical area we support children and young people through robust assessment, SMART planning and effective intervention to achieve positive outcomes within their families and communities. Working within a restorative practice approach, our team works in partnership with families and multi-agency colleagues in intervening to address both the presenting concerns and underlying difficulties.
As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across - however big or small - will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.
In addition, we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff, supported by our IT infrastructure, including Google Chromebooks and Google Apps. Our Flexible Working - Smarter Working Scheme embraces new ways of working. It provides improved work life balance for our staff as it allows staff to work from a variety of locations and staff are not required to work within the office 5 days a week.
About You
The successful candidates will be an enthusiastic and motivated individual with a caring and calm approach. You will demonstrate empathy when dealing with sensitive situations and strong interpersonal and communication skills using different ways of communicating. Showcasing the ability to assess and record a child's needs, applied through evidence based practice to justify decision making. We welcome applications from experienced child protection practitioners with a clear ability to write comprehensively, speak with clarity and are able to deliver analysis based on evidence and research.
In addition, We would expect the successful candidate to demonstrate the following competences (not limited to):
Sutton combines a high quality of life, green and spacious, with distinctive town centres providing access to jobs and culture the capital has to offer.
Ofsted rated us as ‘Good’, with 'Outstanding' leadership, in December 2021. However, we have not rested but continue to strive to do more for families, strengthen practice and bring innovative ways of working across our systems.
As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across - however big or small - will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.
In addition, we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff, supported by our IT infrastructure, including Google Chromebooks and Google Apps.
Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:
Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
Flexi-time (Please note, this applies to roles at grades 1-9 only)
Comprehensive learning and development programme
Local and national discounts for shopping, eating out and leisure activities
Interest free season ticket loans
Local Government Pension Scheme
Car parking scheme
Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
Zip car scheme
Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
Subsidised gym membership
Interested in working in Sutton? Hear from our staff below on why they think Sutton is a great place to be a Social Worker.
If you have any questions about applying for this role, please contact recruitment@sutton.gov.uk