Social Work in Newham is underpinned by a culture of Systemic and Restorative practice with high quality relationships at the heart of our approach. Our DCYPS teams provide statutory services to children and families who live with disability. You will work a varied caseload, including but not restricted to new referrals, CiN, CP, and looked after cases. This is often long term, rewarding work; focusing on sustaining an improved quality of life for the young people and families you work with.
“Our social workers deal with interesting and unique cases, building specialist knowledge which will be invaluable for their futures. Working in CwD is about being an advocate; it’s about giving a voice to those who need it most. We enable families to learn and grow together, improving quality of life for children and young people who might otherwise be left behind.”
You get involved in all of the different aspects of social work. I have completed Assessments, worked on CP and CiN cases, gained experience of court work and can be involved in the looked after process. CwD is unique in this respect. It’s also really busy, but in a good way!”
You are a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England and will have completed your ASYE or have equivalent (over 1 year) statutory children’s social work experience. Experience working directly with children living with disability is advantageous and candidates with this will be prioritised, but we are happy to consider social workers whose experience is with other statutory social work teams. A firm understanding of how SEND can affect families and the processes around children and young people with disabilities is essential.
“Patience and tolerance are key, and you need to be able to be a calming influence on families. You need to be able to connect and build a trust with the families, and have them trust you to be able to find strategies to support them.
You have to be passionate, trustworthy, and empathetic; with a genuine love and passion for helping children and their families, and being that advocate for them.
Finally, you need strong emotional strength and resilience. That is what makes a social worker- that resilience within yourself. It comes from my heart the work that we do”.
Juliet Y, DCYPS Senior Social Worker.
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.