Senior Practitioner – Children Looked After 0-16 – Croydon Council
Salary: Grade 15 (£52,116- £54,129)
Permanent – 36 hours per week
Welcome Payment – £10,000Retention Payment – £2,000
Hybrid working
Job Purpose
The Children Looked After service supports and inspires cared for children, and care experienced young people to become their best, and achieve their aspirations. We take our corporate parenting role very seriously and are committed to supporting our children to be heard, and to flourish. We provide social work support for children and young people aged 0-16. We aim to walk alongside them and enable their plans for permanency to be achieved. We know how important lifelong links are for our children looked after, and we work hard to enable these to be maintained. Senior Practitioner candidates will need to have significant post qualifying experience, including in a statutory child care setting. Prior experience of working with children looked after is useful but not essential. You will however, be committed to high quality relational practice and have a natural ability in creating trusting relationships with children. Candidates will need to be able to demonstrate good experience, knowledge and skills of ability to work in front line settings; being able to work with a complex and diverse range of needs and risks; and making effective and timely decisions including those in contextual safeguarding. Candidates will need to demonstrate their ability to working positively with partner agencies and collaborative working relationships with children and their families. Candidates will need to have good knowledge and understanding of legislative framework, relevant research and national developments, and policies relating to children's social work and relevant to the role. The Senior Practitioner roles work with children with complex needs and support the Team Managers in providing leadership of practice. We work from a systemic framework and trauma informed perspective.
You will support staff across the teams to develop their practice and develop expertise. As a Senior Practitioner you will have expertise in:
Engaging children and young people and relationship building
Direct work across the age range
Assessment and Care Planning / Pathway Planning
Safeguarding for children in care including extra familial harm
High standard of report writing and case recording
Ability to analyse complex information and make child centred decisions.
Chair multi-professional meetings and co-ordinate support
Delivering to performance standards consistently across the measures within the journey of the child.
Essential Requirements
Qualified Social Worker and up to date registered with Social Work EnglandFoundation level systemic practice qualification – desirablePractice Educator or Practice Teacher qualification – desirable
Knowledge of national policy, strategy and developments regarding children’s social care, and areas that impact on children’s social care.Significant experience working with children in care and those who arrived unaccompanied in the UK.Knowledge of relevant legislation, statutory guidance, standards and procedures.Knowledge of relevant theoretical frameworks, practice models and research findings.Knowledge of models of reflective supervision that impact on practice and outcomes.Able to maintain records that evidence our engagement with children and families, informs the quality assurance framework e.g., quantitative, qualitative and outcome information for the children and families, the views and experiences of children and families
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