Social Worker

Location

Crawley, West Sussex | United Kingdom

Job description

We are committed to improving our services for the children and families we support in West Sussex. In May 2023 Ofsted Inspectors praised West Sussex County Council's Children's Services for its 'relentless approach to improving practice,' giving the service an overall rating of 'requires improvement', with 'good' judgements for children in care and leadership and management.

For further information about us and about working in Children's Social Care at West Sussex County Council, please visit

Working With Us

We offer small practice teams of Social Workers managed by a Team Manager and supported by Child & Family Workers as well as additional flexible administrative support from Coordinators embedded within the service.

We provide regular group supervision and peer learning alongside specialist roles within the team to focus on the most vulnerable children. As a Social Worker, you'll have a minimum of 5 CPD and training days per year with access to excellent learning and development provisions such as Research in Practice and Community Care Inform, and Social Work England fees paid.

Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellent
• generous holiday entitlement of up to 29 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring

For a full list this can be found at our

The Opportunity

Family Safeguarding is a strengths-based model and a new way of working with families so that they can stay together, and children can remain safely at home. We will help families to identify what changes need to be made in their daily life and support them to achieve these.

The Family Safeguarding Model is based on multi-disciplinary joint children's and adult teams. The model will therefore be implemented by building on the skills mix of our current children's social work teams by adding the expertise of community mental health staff, domestic abuse specialists and substance misuse workers. In addition to this the offer will be enhanced by co-locating the teams with early help teams.

Joining the Family Safeguarding team in Crawley, you will be undertaking meaningful evidence-based interventions that contribute to improved levels of engagement and safeguarding with parents and children. You will work within a positive, nurturing environment where successes are celebrated and individuals within the team are supported to grow and develop.

You will be able to:

• Analyse and interpret complex information and data, being able to prioritise needs and devise plans for intervention and provision.
• Proactively work as a member of the team
• Develop strong relationships, working alongside carers, colleagues and external agencies to deliver an effective service.
• Communicate clearly and effectively in both written and oral format, including the ability to explain complicated information to a variety of people and use negotiation and persuasion skills to encourage others to adopt a course of action they may not wish to take.
• Recognise limits of own accountability and responsibility.

You will need:

• A recognised Social Work qualification e.g. Degree in Social Work, Post Graduate Certificate in Social Work, DipSW, CQSW or equivalent as recognised by the relevant professional body.
• Completion of relevant post qualifying training.
• Evidence of at least two years experience post qualification working in the UK within front line operational practice.
• Registration with the relevant professional registration body and maintaining registration with that body.
• You will need to be able to travel independently around the county, including to areas that may not be easily accessible by public transport. Pool cars and pool bikes available.

Further Information

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

This post is subject to Social Work England registration, an enhanced DBS check, 5 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our page.

Job tags

Salary

£42k - £54.53k per annum