In Lambeth we put children and their families at the heart of our practice, and practice at the heart of all that we do. Our new Borough Plan has social justice at the centre and a clear vision for improving outcomes for our children, young people and young adults who may be at Risk Outside The Home (ROTH).
You will be joining an ambitious, passionate, and committed leadership team. We are working at pace to create the conditions for effective social work to flourish and for all our children to receive a good service. We are clear on the challenges we face and have the courage and vision to deliver improvements. Following our inspection in 2022 Ofsted recognised the momentum and investment in Children’s Services. We are now seeking to complete our transformational leadership team at a Service Manager level.
About the Role:
Lambeth is looking for an experienced creative initiative-taking and influential Service Manager for our Contextual / Risk Outside The Home Safeguarding Service to help us achieve our vision of making Lambeth one of the best places in the world for children, young people and young adults to grow up in. In this post , you will play a key leadership role in the delivery of high-quality social care practice to ensure that these outcomes are delivered.
As the Service Manager you will have responsibility for the management of a team of qualified and unqualified skilled professionals working with young people and adults up to 25 years of age, empowering them to work together in a culture that embodies our extra-familial core values and develops and evolves a model of practice to safeguard our children, young people and young adults in a variety of contextual settings.
As the service lead, you will ensure delivery of high quality, inclusive services, relentlessly. championing and supporting excellent extra-familial safeguarding practice across Lambeth. and the safeguarding partnership, through research, communication, training, guidance, quality assurance and piloting new and innovative ways of working.
You will need to be an experienced Service Manager within the area of delivering Contextual / Risk Outside The Home Safeguarding, with a passion to lead and motivate staff to demonstrate best practice and proven outcomes.
You will be an expert in supporting practitioners to be the agents of change, building relationships and driving culture change with key internal and external partners, driving and improving ways of working to embed a value-based culture that ensures a consistent and effective response to children, young people and young adults.
You must have the essential skills and ability to manage risk and develop relationships within the community to empower services, organisations and communities to work together to build safety, support those that need it and disrupt those who seek to exploit.
You will need strong data analysis skills to be able to identify issues and emerging themes and address them within the service; being able to successfully establish a meaningful impact and outcomes framework and collect qualitative and quantitative data to monitor and evaluate and continuously improve your service’s performance.
As the Service Manager you will have excellent budgetary skills, taking responsibility for your service area with a relentless focus on value for money; ensuring that spending can be evidenced in improving the safety of our children, young people, young adults and communities.
Lambeth promotes a Signs of Safety approaches in working with children, families, young adults and communities. By embedding this framework Lambeth is inspiring, resourcing and enabling social workers to undertake impactful relationship-based practice. Experience in the delivery of this framework would be desirable, however full training will be available.
Located in the heart of South London, Lambeth Borough is a vibrant community. Stretching from the dynamic neighbourhood of Streatham in the South to the iconic landmarks of Waterloo in the North, we are proud to be the 9th largest borough in London. Our diversity is our strength, with more than 130 languages spoken, making Lambeth the home of the Windrush generation, London's largest LGBTQ+ community, and a thriving Portuguese-speaking community.
With exceptional schools, lush green spaces including Brockwell Park, cultural gems like the Black Cultural Archives, and world-renowned institutions such as St Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth offers an enriching and dynamic environment. The Civic Centre is just a short walk from the main underground and train station.
“Lambeth – a borough with social and climate justice at its heart. By harnessing the power and pride of our people and partnerships, we will proactively tackle inequalities so that children and young people can have the best start in life and so everyone can feel safe and thrive in a place of opportunity.”
In Lambeth, we offer our social workers: