This is an exciting senior leadership opportunity available within our staffing structure within Children’s Services as follows:
The Head of Service for Family Support and Safeguarding will lead the long-term service where social workers work with families to support and help them to care for their children safely. You will report directly to the Assistant Director for Children’s Social Care and Youth Inclusion and will be a key member of the senior management team keeping a focus on practice, performance, and workforce wellbeing & development. With access to a wealth of resources in the borough, social workers are able to work creatively and collaboratively with colleagues to get the best services in place to meet the needs of our children and families. The long-term support and safeguarding service covers all aspects of child in need, child protection, court proceedings work and provides support to children with disabilities. In Merton we recognise the value in training social workers to qualify and stay with us as they start their careers. Within the family support and safeguarding service, there is a newly created social work academy and the workforce development unit where learning and insights are at the heart of our workplace culture. The Principal Social Worker within this service supports the Head of Service to ensure high quality social work practice is delivered across all of the teams and social workers receive a generous training offer including the opportunity to become practice assessors.
We have a blended approach to work and our leadership team works flexibly whilst ensuring a visible footprint in the office up to three days per week.
We welcome applications from a diverse range of professionals and encourage representatives of Black and Minority Ethnic Groups to apply to Merton in the interests of valuing and promoting diversity within the senior leadership team.
We look forward to receiving your application.
Interviews for this position will take place week commencing the 4th September 2023.
Merton is an outer borough in southwest London. Suburban in character, the borough has three main town centres: Wimbledon, Mitcham, and Morden. We want our to be a great place for every child to grow up in order to give them the best start in life. To do this, we need the best social work talent working with us.
We offer a full range of employment benefits to ensure every member of staff feels valued and able to progress:
If you like the sound of working in Merton, or want to know more about a specific role, please do not hesitate to contact recruitment@merton.gov.uk