Advanced Practitioner

Are you an experienced social worker, passionate about modelling and supporting excellence in social work practice? Are you ready for a new challenge? If so, we would love to hear from you!, We are looking for an Advanced Practitioner to work in the Principal Social Worker's Team to support high quality social work practice and contribute to a culture of continuous learning and development across children's social work teams in the city. You will be restorative and relational, professionally curious and committed to embedding a Think Family approach.

This role will be providing support to team across children's services, including family help and children in care teams, so experience in and knowledge of writing court reports and safeguarding work will be required.

In this role you will be a recognised practice leader, playing a crucial part in staff development by creating and delivering training/workshops and leading reflective practice sessions. You will also provide mentoring and practice support to social workers and social work teams and provide additional support for those on the ASYE programme to support their learning and the development of their portfolio.

As an Advanced Practitioner you will support the delivery of our Aiming for Excellence plan, taking a lead on areas requiring development and supporting relevant quality assurance activity.

You will have significant post qualification experience and hold, or be currently working towards, Practice Educator Award stage 1 award with a commitment to attaining your Practice Educator Stage 2 Award as part of the Advanced Practitioner role. You will have excellent written and verbal skills, have extensive knowledge of social work theories and approaches, be legally literate and able to offer effective challenge and feedback.

You will be directly line managed by a Deputy Principal Social Worker and will work closely with other Advanced Practitioners in Children's Services as well as those in Adult's Services and also the Senior Restorative Practice lead.

We will inspire, support and champion you so that you can be the social worker you want to be.

For your valued contribution we offer:

• Fantastic learning and development offer including access to Research in Practice and regular social work briefings and conferences


• A Social Work CPD / Career Pathway which will support you to progress and develop


• Ability to claim back your Social Work England fees annually.


• Reimbursement of Blue Light discount card membership fees


• Additional payments for practising Practice Educators


• Supportive and flexible working arrangements, including some home working


• Vibrant and active employee networks including four staff equality forums (Race Religion and Belief; Disability and Age; Gender Maternity and Paternity and LGBT+)


• Access to an external and independent confidential reporting service for employee concerns to be raised ("Safe Place")


• Commitment to eliminating discrimination and supporting employee wellbeing to ensure a good work /life balance, including a strong employee assistance scheme and wellbeing offer
  
  These posts are subject to an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. You must be Social Work England registered and have completed the Assessed and Supported Year of Employment (ASYE) or an equivalent post qualifying pathway.
  
  We are committed to building a workforce that is reflective of the diverse community we serve. We want to attract the best applications from people of all backgrounds and underrepresented groups because we strongly believe in adding value through diversity, inclusion, and equality. Our employees enable us to deliver services that are accessible, inclusive, and reflective of Wolverhampton residents.


Our status as a Disability Confident Employer showcases our commitment to people with disabilities or health conditions, advocating for their opportunities and potential. We've received the Stonewall Silver Award, emphasising our dedication to the LGBT+ community by nurturing an inspiring, inclusive, and equal workplace. As of March 2023, the RACE Code Quality Mark signifies our active engagement with racial equality. These recognitions validate our continuous efforts towards fostering an inclusive work environment that respects and values our diverse employees.

As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the essential criteria for the post.

We encourage, inspire and value an inclusive culture here at the council where employees can flourish, thrive and be themselves. We have four staff equality forums for employees to join. These help to ensure our employees have a voice, they feel empowered to speak up and where everyone is treated with respect - Learn more about the staff equality forums here, From Monday 11th December 2023 an exciting change is happening for us as an organisation - we are implementing a new system which will improve your candidate experience! To access your candidate portal for our new system, head to https://wolverhampton.wm-jobs.co.uk/members/.

If you already have an application in progress with us before the new year, don't worry, this will continue as it normally would and there will be no impact on your application or the process. More information on our new and improved system can be found on the WMJobs help pages!

City of Wolverhampton

There's never been a better time to join the award winning City of Wolverhampton Council to further your career. We are a progressive and future facing organisation, and passionate about making our city better for all who live, work and travel here.

We are an ambitious organisation focused on delivering the best services for people in Wolverhampton; working for us gives you the opportunity to make a difference to their lives.

Our continual drive for improvement led to us winning APSE Overall Council of the Year Service Delivery Award, also achieving Annual Service Award Finalists for our services in Waste and Recycling; Public Protection; Best Housing Regeneration and Homelessness multi-agency work, showing that the City of Wolverhampton Council is truly an organisation striving for daily excellence in all we do.

Equal Opportunities

The City of Wolverhampton Council employs over 5,000 people in more than 600 different trades and professions. We are committed to representing Wolverhampton's diverse community and therefore strongly encourage applications from all applicants meeting the essential criteria. The council operate a guaranteed interview policy for veterans who have served in the military, those who have previously been under our care and are under the age of 25 and disabled candidates, where it is evidenced that the essential criteria of the post is met.

In Wolverhampton we are ambitious for our social workers, passionate about excellent, relational social work practice and courageous in our innovation, with leaders who are visible and responsive.

We need people like you who want to make a real difference in the lives of children and families and will support us to deliver excellent services to the most vulnerable children in our City.

If you are someone who is passionate and tenacious, wants to do the best job possible and is committed to excellent social work practice and achieving the very best for our Children, Young People and Families then we want to hear from you!

At the award-winning City of Wolverhampton Council, we work restoratively with children and families, building strong relationships and connections to help them find long-lasting solutions.

Our vision for the Children and Young People Services is:

· To develop respectful and empowering relationships with children, young people and families

· To ensure children are at the centre of everything we do

· High aspirations, high expectations

We are a forward-thinking, responsive and innovative organisation and want our social workers to spend their time building relationships with families to achieve real, sustainable change. We focus on teams having manageable workloads and we have a clear development pathway alongside a substantial training and development offer which is varied and responsive to practice challenges. Our senior managers and leaders are visible and take the time to listen to frontline employees. We are proud to say we are Ofsted rated Good with Outstanding features and have fully embedded a Restorative Practice approach., The city has seen rapid developments with major projects like the i54, Way Youth Zone and i10 and more exciting developments are planned for the westside of the city. The leisure-led mixed user scheme includes a multi-screen cinema, restaurants, bars, hotel, multi-storey car park and apartments, all accessible by foot from our city centre.

We benefit from being in a prime location, with excellent transport links at the heart of the UK's high speed rail and motorway networks, making us an employer of choice for people across the West Midlands.

Wolverhampton is rated as one of the top cities in the UK for families. Almost 90 per cent of the city's primary and secondary schools are rated as 'good' or 'outstanding' by Ofsted. The City also offers a wide range of family friendly facilities with stunning parks and green spaces and top entertainment attractions such as Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Civic and Wulfrun Halls and the Grand Theatre all of which attract top acts such as Jimmy Carr, Gary Barlow, World Darts Competition, upcoming bands and West End productions.

Why Work for City of Wolverhampton Council?

We invest heavily in skills and training for our employees; you will develop and grow with us through your time, benefiting from regular professional development conversations, and varied training opportunities.

We offer a wide range of benefits including competitive salaries that progress within different grades for the variety of jobs on offer. The majority of our positions offer a generous annual leave entitlement of 25 days - this increases with length of service. There is also an added option to buy up to 10 days additional leave in each leave year. New entrants also benefit from 8 days bank holiday entitlement (basic leave entitlement of 33 days).

The council offers an excellent Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) with employee and employer contributions based on salary grades and other benefits including:

• Index linked pension


• Option to convert your pension for tax-free cash when you retire


• Retirement on the grounds of ill-health at any age.


The council also offers a wide range of flexible working options to fit in around your commitments including:

• Flexi-time


• Reduced hours working


• Job share


• Homeworking


• Term time only


Other rewards

• Discounted city parking at a number of sites with reduced charges for blue badge holders


• Annual Travel Card Scheme


• Salary Sacrifice scheme for cars - with a wide range of 'green' vehicles, cycles and associated equipment, personal IT equipment and smartphones


• Retail, leisure, legal and ethical savings and loans through our competitive rewards portal