Social Worker / Senior Practitioner - Adolescent Safeguarding Team

We are offering a £3,000 annual market supplement for this role!

We are enhancing our offer to young people at risk of contextual harm, violence and exploitation in our Specialist Adolescent Service by increasing the number of social workers and creating or maintaining teams dedicated to different areas of specialism. We have the Adolescent Safeguarding Team that delivers statutory social work assessments and plans; the SHIFT practice who deliver long term and robust social work and systemic led services with young people who require this level of intervention; Project X who deliver a range of targeted youth work activities; the ASPIRE team who offer prevention support to children in primary school, those at risk of exclusion and who have been victims of bullying or violence; the Youth Justice Team who deliver statutory services with children in the criminal justice system and the Health and Wellbeing Hub who deliver substance misuse and sexual exploitation interventions. 

We have both Senior Social Worker and Social Worker positions available in our Adolescent Safeguarding Team to deliver timely social work assessments, plans and interventions with children and young people who have been referred due to concerns of exploitation, violence, sexual assault or other harm in the community.

We would be delighted to receive your application to deliver high quality social work with our most vulnerable young people.

What will the role consist of?

The team receives referrals for children aged 13 years or older and across a wide spectrum of contextual safeguarding needs, including children who may be persistently missing, have been coerced into sexual or criminal exploitation, have been violent to other children or experienced serious youth violence in the community, at risk due to online activity or grooming, including radicalisation. These children may have additional learning needs or be out of education, struggling with housing needs and may have previous social care involvement and difficult home lives pushing them into unsafe relationships in the community. 

Your role will be to respond to referrals in a timely manner, establishing risk and safety early on in the assessment, arranging strategy meetings when required and carrying out s47 investigations. You will be responsible for holding child in need or child protection plans as appropriate. AfC has a Risk Outside the Home plan available for children at the threshold of child protection but where the risk is predominantly outside the home. You will ensure that visits are carried out as required and that your direct work and any interventions provided by others are meaningful and effective to enable the child to be safe in the community and supported by their family. 

For senior social work positions, you will be expected to support more complex work and develop the team in their delivery of best practice. You would supervise students or newly qualified social workers. 

For further information about this role, please contact Kathy Walker by email kathy.walker@achievingforchildren.org.uk for an informal discussion.