We are seeking a Social Care Workforce Officer to join our Children’s Social Work Academy. This is an exciting opportunity to shape and influence the future of social work through the development of a coordinated workforce plan and talent pipelines. You'll drive improvements in practice and sustainability through working collaboratively with senior leaders, managers, and external partners to deliver targeted workforce planning initiatives. You will play a key role in shaping workforce strategies that promote professional development, retention, and sustainability. Your work will be essential in ensuring our social care staff are equipped to meet both local and national standards, fostering an environment of continuous learning and professional growth.
Key Responsibilities:
You will be able to inspire and motivate others to have a desire for knowledge and the pursuit of continuous learning. You are a self- starter with a deep understanding of children’s social care, curious to learn more and possess the energy and ability to generate ideas and engage others to explore. Be fervent in your desire to support students, social workers and social care practitioners to be the best they can possibly be so they can help families in Newham to be the best they can possibly be.
You should want to be part of systems that embrace change in response to need with an established framework of relational practice that will welcome your contribution. You will be an individual who has experience of local authority services for children and knowledge of workforce planning and development relating to children’s social work. Candidates will need to demonstrate this understanding clearly in their supporting statements to be shortlisted. We welcome applications from qualified social workers, although a social work qualification is not essential to meet the criteria in the person specification.
We’re a vibrant, dynamic, culturally rich London Borough with a young population and limitless potential. We’re a challenging yet rewarding place for social work practise to flourish and we are steadfastly committed to our workforce being representative of the families that we work with. We are taking coordinated, meaningful and focused action to develop an inclusive culture because we believe this is at the heart of enabling diversity in all respects, including diversity of thought. We are taking positive actions to challenge all forms of discrimination and injustice to help make Newham a fairer and more equitable place for children and families to live, learn and thrive.
We’re building a fairer Newham through investment, co-production and by continuously developing our 'Circles of Support' practice model; centring on systemic and restorative practice and a specialist support offer for our practitioners. Ofsted described Newham as having a positive culture of learning and development and we always try to develop talent in-house. We promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023 alone, and have put more than 47 practitioners through further education since 2020. We value your development and at Newham career progression is a reality for many of our colleagues.
We understand that social work can be a challenging yet ultimately very rewarding profession that makes demands of you personally and professionally. In Newham we value your wellbeing and we aim to ensure that you have a better work/life balance through a remote working offer when you are not visiting children and families, a modern office space for when you’re on site, a flexible working policy where all requests are considered, and a clinical offer to support you to do your best work.
We’ve been working hard to make Newham a great place to practise social work:
- A commitment to addressing disproportionality wherever we find it.
- We’re a GOOD local authority focused on reaching excellence.
- We offer genuinely flexible/hybrid working as long as children and families are supported.
- Stability: 100% of our Senior Managers and 71% of Team Managers are permanent.
- Our firmly established practice model, Circles of Support, was recently nominated for the prestigious MJ Award for Innovation in Children’s Services and allows systemic, restorative practice to flourish.
- Career progression; we promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023.
- Social Care Academy – 47 social workers have studied for systemic higher education with us since 2020. Our Academy offer received significant praise from Ofsted.
- A competitive package for social workers of up to £57,116 (includes market supplement).
- Oyster card/parking permit for business use.
- Wellbeing service, leisure and discount benefits (Council scheme).
- Travel season ticket loan, cycle scheme, Local Authority pension.