Job title: Head of Service – Children in Care & Care Experienced Young People - Salary Up to £91,737 plus 5k per year retention payment.
Department: Children’s Services
Location: Croydon Council (CR0)
Grade / Salary: CSRB, Salary Up to £91,737 + £5,000 Retention payment
Hours of work: 36 per week / Monday – Friday
Contract type: Permanent
Croydon is recruiting to a Head of Service role to provide operational and strategic leadership for Children in Care & Care Experienced Young People’s services. With responsibility for Children in Care 0-16; Young People’s 16 + Services; Access to Resources Service & Strategic Lead for Permanence across the practice system this role is dedicated to ensuring innovative provision to enable children to reach their full potential. Supporting children to live safely in secure family homes or alternative homes enabling stable loving relationships within their birth families and with others taking a co-corporate parenting approach our ambition is to ensure each child achieves their ambitions and dreams.
Croydon has a large population of care experienced young people, many former refugee’s so this role is crucial to their outcomes. We work closely with Adopt London South; we are developing our own residential children’s home and have a major transformation programme in place to improve our corporate parenting outcomes. We are looking for a leader with inspirational leadership, committed to Croydon for the long term whose focus on quality practice stands out.
Croydon is London’s largest borough, with 390,000 residents, a vibrant, urban town centre at its heart and a network of district centres each with their own unique identity, stretching from Crystal Palace to Coulsdon. Located on the Southern edge of the capital, the borough benefits from excellent transport links throughout the borough and further afield to the coast, the city and Gatwick airport, making Croydon a place of opportunity for business, earning and learning.
Croydon has one of the fastest growing populations in the UK and is home to 94,000 children, a thriving voluntary sector, close working with our schools, colleges, health, and police partners. We are a borough with big ambition, grit and determination and Children's Social Care was judged Good in our last Ofsted inspection.
Croydon’s practice model utilises systemic ideas to underpin family led relationships for children and families. An established multi-disciplinary clinical team supports all services enabling risk to be shared and a strengths based approach to improving outcomes for children.
Your experience of working in a statutory setting will allow you to operate with confidence and emotional intelligence within a demanding context; using research to support your decision making creating positive change in children and young people’s lives.
We are looking for an experienced social work manager to join the senior leader leadership team of Children’s Social Care. You will need to have significant experience working in statutory children’s services within diverse urban environments and a clear commitment to Croydon’s values.
About you
The successful candidate with have:
· Social Work qualification and SW England Registration
· Substantial experience of social care practice leadership within the remit of this role.
· Experience of working within multicultural communities applying systemic approaches to challenging oppression and discrimination.
· Knowledge and experience of developing social care practice through innovation and partnership with internal and external stakeholders.
For an informal conversation about the role please contact RóisÃn Madden, Director of Children’s Social Care roisin.madden@croydon.gov.uk.
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