Title: Social Worker
Grade: SO2/PO3
Working pattern:
Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm
Flexibility to work outside of these hours if required.
Benefits:
Zone 1-2 Travel card, specially designed core training package, professional development opportunities, good pension scheme and generous holidays, flexible working arrangements, an experienced management team, and a great working location with good transport links.
Application overview:
Please ensure you address the person specification fully, referencing how you meet each specification in turn as fully as possible.
Closing date: Monday, 20th May 2024 at 09:00 for internal candidates and Tuesday 27th May 2024 at 09:00 for external candidates
Interview date: week commencing 27/05/2024 for internal candidates and 03/06/2024 for external candidates, with dates and times to be confirmed. Please expect to be invited to a three-part interview including MI role play interview, written task, and technical question panel.
For further details / informal discussion, please contact Team Manager at [email protected]
JOB OVERVIEW
An exciting opportunity has opened within Independent Futures where we have created a specialist Leaving Care Service for children and young people age 16-25 years old. Islington is looking to recruit a social worker who is motivated, passionate and able to work with children and young people sometimes in challenging circumstances. You will be trained in Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Inform Practice to ensure sustainability of practice across the service.
As a social worker, you will need to hold a qualification in social work, a clear criminal history and you need to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. You will bring the principles of dignity, respect, empathy, and a strength based, collaborative approach to service delivery. You will need to be able to work within a team as well as use your own initiative.
MAIN DUTIES
Our vision for the service is that children and young people are safe, can overcome difficulties and can form secure relationships through their childhood and into their adulthood.
As a Child and Family Social Worker you will be responsible for working with children in need of help and protection or looked after children and care leavers, whilst maintaining a safeguarding focus. You will work directly with the child or young person and their family or carer to build empathic, purposeful relationships that facilitate meaningful and sustainable change, as well as stability in placement and permanency for children.
You will share and exercise the organisational practice ethos which places Motivational Practice and trauma-informed practice at the heart of working with families. You will be ambitious for every child to reach their potential in all aspects of their development including education, health and emotional wellbeing.
DUTIES
You will be responsible for managing the specific set of tasks relating to statutory and non-statutory case responsibility for children in need of help and protection, in public care and young people leaving care with the support of an appropriately qualified supervisor.
You will have excellent knowledge and understanding of child development milestones, issues impacting children, young people and families and be able to apply this to your work. You will have an awareness and curiosity of indicators of abuse and neglect and how to lead child safeguarding process. You will have a good understanding of the law and the family and youth justice systems.
You will be skilled at building effecting relationships with children, young people and families to keep them safe, bring about change and improve their outcomes.
You will have excellent communication skills with children, young people and families as well as with carers and professionals taking into consideration equality and diversity and life experiences and the meaning behind behaviour. You will also have excellent skills when it comes to writing case notes, reports and assessments, including analysis, decision-making, planning and review.
You will be part of developing a culture of trauma-informed practice that helps to improve the quality of relationships with children and young people, through Motivational Practice.
WORKING FOR YOUR ORGANISATION
Islington Children Social Care was rated by OFSTED as Outstanding in March 2020 and in October 2022 Independent Futures received a focused visit from OFSTED looking at the Local Authority’s arrangements for care experienced children and young people (care leavers). We proudly share some highlights from the report:
- Young people are effusive about Independent Futures, Islington’s leaving care service.
- Care experienced children and young people in Islington benefit from teams of highly committed, ambitious and determined professionals who work extremely well together, helping the children and young people to remain safe and to achieve in life.
- Exceptional and aspirational corporate and operational leaders work together to listen to care experienced young people, to understand their world and to act on their views.
- Islington’s motivational practice model ensures that all staff and many partner agencies provide trauma-informed assessments.
- The genuine warmth of staff and their affection and pride in children’s progress and achievements are evident in their direct work and frequent contact and visits.
- Staff report that they feel valued by their managers. This improves and supports practitioners’ emotional health and well-being.
- Skilled social workers and YPAs are appropriately proud of their work.
- Good opportunities for development, training and promotion are increasing the number of staff transferring from agency to permanent contracts.
- A localised approach to commissioning housing support means that young people can maintain local links and have access to important local services, such as colleges, employment and training opportunities that will support them to achieve independence.
The Independent Futures Service is well resourced and enjoys a stable and supportive workforce. You will be joining a multi-professional team made up of experienced managers, Senior Social Workers, Social Workers, Young Person Advisors, Mental Health Social Worker, CAMHS professionals, a UASC specialist and Social Work Coordinators. We take pride in providing a learning environment where staff can develop and our controlled caseloads, safe working practices, a culture of strong supervision and excellent training opportunities enable a supportive working environment for all staff. We offer dedicated training, coaching and supervision to develop your skills. We have opportunities to consult with clinicians on cases and offer a range of appropriate support services in-borough for our children and young people.
Our children, young people and their families are at the heart of everything we do and the development of our practice model allows us to them towards their version of meaningful and sustained changed. Islington’s Motivational Practice Model provides an integrated care, safeguarding and change model, which includes Motivational Interviewing skills helping to build meaningful relationships and promote safety, collaboration and purposeful change.
What is Motivational Practice?
Motivational Practice is Islington’s Practice Model. There are core elements that underpin the practice framework that provide a set of skills around how to communicate in a helpful way with workers that you supervise, the professional network as a whole and families we work with, supporting a process of change.
Our practice model is further complemented by Trauma-informed practice (including Dyadic Development Practice), as we believe that by better understanding the lived experiences of those we are here to serve, we are better positioned to engage, support and assist children and young people to reach their full potential. Relationships are also central to achieving the very best outcome for our children, young people, their families, and their carers. We work closely with our fostering team and placements service to support our carers in offering a trauma informed approach to care, and to offer stable placements where our children and young people can achieve their potential.