Job title: Social Worker/ Advanced Social Worker; Family Assessment Service
Department: Children’s Services
Location: Croydon Council (CR0)
Grade / Salary: Grade 11 - 14; £41,793 - £49,890 + £5,000 welcome payment + £2,500 retention payment
Hours of work: 36 per week / Monday – Friday
Contract type: Permanent
Job Purpose
We expect children and families in Croydon to receive outstanding services from our social work staff. We want our staff to have high expectations and high challenge of their practice and each other. It’s an exciting time to be joining us. To meet the changing needs of our children and families we have invested in creating the conditions for social work to flourish. We have a number of exciting opportunities for Social Workers to join our Croydon.
The Family Assessment Service receives cases from our Front Door (Single Point of Contact – SPOC). Social Workers carry out Child and Family Assessments, create family plans and where appropriate work with families to support the intervention of agreed plans (brief intervention). Social Workers carry out S47 Child Protection Enquiries, work with a range of partner agencies to ensure children and young people are supported and safeguarded.
Croydon has five teams within the Family Assessment Service based in our modern offices in Croydon, come and join us. We are committed to improving the lives of children and young people and their families across the Borough. We offer great office accommodation and facilities in the centre of Croydon with excellent public transport links.
Benefits of Working With Us
Highly competitive salary & retention payment of £2,500 giving up to £52,390pa
Welcome Payment of £5,000
A pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 20%
31 days annual leave in addition to Bank Holidays
Accredited Systemic Practice training
A range of CPD opportunities
Investment into your staff well-being
Good management support for practitioners, regular supervision, group supervision led by systemic therapists and access to a clinical therapist to support your work directly.
Hybrid working policy enabling work from home and flexible working approaches to support your work-life balance where the role allows plus a high-quality office base from where direct work is delivered from.
We are looking for confident Qualified social workers, that are Social Work England Registered and that have completed their ASYE and who can demonstrate their skills, resilience and experience in;
Making relationships to create change
Identifying and working with our families’ strengths.
Managing complex cases
Working with families and children to produce Child and Family assessments
Working directly with children, young people and their families evidencing multi-agency partnerships with a robust understanding of thresholds of need.
Strong interpersonal skills to engage with families and referrers from all partner agencies
Excellent analytical and writing skills and the ability to incorporate our systemic practice model which builds on families’ strengths with a focus on protective factors.
Effective time management skills to deliver within expected timeframes.
Home to 94,000 children, Croydon is a truly unique place to practice social work. We are a borough with big ambition, grit, and determination. Children's social care was judged ‘good’ in our last Ofsted inspection.
Our systemic practice framework places emphasis on relationships as key to supporting change for families. We make sense of the world through relationships, focusing on the whole family system and thinking about our own part in that too – what we bring, our own family stories and beliefs, how we use ourselves in the work that we do. Our practice model is all about collaboration - with our families, networks and partners; being open to challenge and ensuring our practitioners are highly trained in a variety of intervention approaches. Our established clinical service will support you to grow your own systemic practice within the service, providing accredited training, co-working and direct work with families.
For an informal chat about working in Croydon, contact Agata Stolowska at agata.stolowska@croydon.gov.uk