FULL TIME | Permanent | £37000 - 44000
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: Grade H1/H2 SCP 27-35, £37,035 - £44,711 per annum
Closing date: 22nd January 2025 at 23:59
Blackpool Children’s Services has been on an incredible journey, you could say it’s been a roller coaster! It’s been tough here at times, as we have worked through our OFSTED improvement journey and the intervention from the DFE and such intensive improvement and change has impacted on our workforce.
However, we are now developing a reputation as a good place to practice social work and the DfE’s appointed Commissioner recently recommended removal from DfE intervention. Our latest OFSTED inspection was positive and we are now seeing the positive impact of the hard work undertaken, both for our workforce and for the children and families we serve.
Our services are stable, we have an experienced and committed stable senior leadership team under our new DCS Vicky Gent and are seeing that children and families are now receiving better services.
At the heart of this improvement has been our investment in social work practice and our social workers. Our shared sense of purpose is based upon the Blackpool Families Rock values, culture and practice principals and we are proud this was co-produced with Blackpool’s children, young people, their families and our partnership agencies.
Our teams are small and strengthened by a Supervision Policy which enables a supportive relationship with your manager. We are committed to reducing our caseloads, enabling our social workers to spend time developing trusted relationships with children and their families.
Our staff care about Blackpool’s children and families, and we care about them.
We value that our staff are fully committed and often work above and beyond- we’ve seen that even more during the Pandemic. In return we therefore offer a flexible approach to working including remote and home working and flexibility with working hours to allow you to meet your own family’s needs too.
If you would like to come and join us on the next stage of this journey please get in touch, you will be guaranteed invaluable experience, a manageable caseload, interesting work and good quality management support.
Assessment and Support Service
Our Assessment and Support Teams undertakes Child & Family Assessments, supports children & families via Child in Need Plans on a short-term basis and ensuring the partnership agencies offer ongoing Early Help Support. The teams also undertake S7 private family court proceedings, Section 47 child protection enquiries and supports families to prepare for Initial Child protection Conferences. At times the service commences Initial Care Proceedings to safeguard children in emergency situations and undertake joint assessments with Housing regarding young people who are homeless.
You will have the opportunity to develop trusting relationships with children and their families. Using our restorative and strength based co-produced Blackpool Families Rock approach we support families to have great outcomes and prevent children’s needs from escalating. You will be supported to develop a relationship with your manager, have regular supervision, support from our Practice Development Team, excellent training opportunities and access to tools and resources to assist in your day-to-day work.
For further information please contact Ann Eckley on 01253 476930 or ann.eckley@blackpool.gov.uk or Rob Barlow on 01253 477043 or Rob.barlow@blackpool.gov.uk
This is a fantastic opportunity for qualified social workers to develop and continue their social work career and for newly qualified social workers looking to start their career.
At Blackpool we have structured career pathways, which start from the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment, to becoming an experienced social worker and all the way up to Head of Service, so there is no journey too big or too small at Blackpool.
If you are a newly qualified social worker we have established ASYE programme offers:
Upon completion of your ASYE, we will continue to support you to enhance your social work skills to become an experienced social worker (H2 grade).
We are committed to ensure that you work with smaller numbers of children and families which allows you the time to build trusting relationships and to focus on undertaking quality child centred Social Work. You will have the time to focus on the child as well as yourself, your own development and career ambitions.
What we offer
It all adds up to an exciting package
We’ve strengthened our recruitment process too - You’ll get a quick response to any expression of interest and application. We offer regular virtual interview days and we will keep in contact with you from the day you are offered a role to your first day with us.
Applying to more than one Social Work Team?
Please submit only one application, stating the Teams you wish to apply for and how you meet the skills/knowledge required for each Team within your Supporting Information.
Not ready to apply yet? Register your interest Here
to view the Job Description.
Please click here to see the benefits of working for Blackpool Council.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children/vulnerable adults. This post is subject to satisfactory reference history of at least two years, Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check, medical clearance, evidence of any essential qualifications and proof of Right to Work in the UK in accordance with the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996.
This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and amendments to the exemptions order, which mean that certain offences are ‘protected’ and do not need to be disclosed, guidance on the "filtering" of offences can be found at New filtering rules for DBS certificates (from 28 November 2020 onwards) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
For further information on the health and wellbeing support on offer during your employment, please see here.
Have you got what it takes to ride the Roller Coaster ride of Social Work in Blackpool? for further information on the career path and development opportunities available at Blackpool please see here.
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