Experienced Social Workers - First Response Children's Services

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a service that brings together and aligns our Family Help Services with our Front Door of Social Care. These are non- case holding social work roles that are about reaching out into the community, supporting the Families to build upon their strengths and access support where necessary.

Do you have partnership skills? Can you take advice and guidance to another level by stepping out and showing how to bring a plan together, assess risk, draw partners together and enable effective intervention with families. Are you confident in your knowledge of risk, of levels of need and able to engage others kindly, building relationships in the community and making a difference for families?

Your knowledge and confidence will be useful in supporting the Front Door, taking referrals and working alongside First Response Advisors and partners to share information, identify risk and strengths and facilitating work transfer to the right place at the right time. You may be required to work outside of core business hours in line with the needs of the service.

Our commitment to you

We know that when you come to work in Trafford, we have a responsibility to provide you with the right tools and support to flourish in your new role.

Induction

We have recently updated our induction programme for new colleagues joining us at all levels. During your first two weeks you will have protected time to get to know your team, our systems and other parts of the service.

Workload

We are absolutely committed to ensuring that your workload is manageable. We believe that manageable workloads are critical, and managers will support you and confirm priorities through discussion and supervision. We have performance management reporting of workloads and therefore at all levels we are responsible for monitoring workloads across the service.

There will be times where there is a level of flexibility required to meet the needs of the service or for individual children you work with, particularly in times of crisis. We will ensure that you are able to take additional hours back quickly to give you balance between your work and home life.

Supervision

One of our practice-led improvements has been to refresh our supervision framework, which has been a really exciting piece of work. We commit to offering monthly formal supervision that is both reflective and supportive and provides you with clear advice, guidance and direction. We also offer peer supervision as part of our refreshed framework, with practitioners involved in deciding the topics of discussion.

Opportunities for progression

A number of Trafford social workers have recently had the opportunity to undertake project secondments and DfE pilot work. We're always on the lookout for new initiatives that will benefit our service and our practitioners, and we will support you to step up and develop your skills in new ways wherever possible.

It is always wonderful to see colleagues progress within the service and we are keen to support our social workers to reach their full career potential here at Trafford.

A note from Pamela Wharton, Director of Early Help and Social Care.

We are currently recruiting Experienced Social Workers (in line with PCF), with at least 2 years post qualifying experience to our First Response Service and would love to hear from you

Here in Trafford Children's Services our vision is that our teams are offering the right help at the right time, and that at all levels our interventions make life better for children and families. We are ambitious for our children and for our practitioners - and our core value is 'would this be good enough for my child'?

We want to have practitioners and managers who are confident and brave in their practice and are supported by strong leaders at all levels. As a relatively small local authority, we pride ourselves on our friendly teams, manageable caseloads, creative approach and colleagues who support each other. We were pleased to see this recognised in the Ofsted report that followed our ILACS inspection in late 2022, which highlighted that "social workers in Trafford are overwhelmingly positive about both the local authority and the support they receive."

In Trafford our approach is strengths-based, using relational and restorative practice. Our recent Ofsted report referred to our "relational model of social work practice, which is well regarded by the wider workforce, has been successfully implemented."

We believe that a culture and environment in which our managers and social workers can thrive is an essential element of improving outcomes for children and families. Our 2023 Ofsted report recognised this, noting a "cultural shift (that) has been underpinned by a strong training offer to support social workers to develop the skills they need to provide a better service to children"., "Trafford is a great place to work and we are striving to make it even better. We believe the service structure we now have in place is working well and is enabling children and families to get the right help at the right time. You will find more information directly from colleagues about working at Trafford on our website. We hope you will like what you see and hear - and will be inspired to join us.

"I look forward to receiving your application. I firmly believe together we can truly make a difference.", Trafford Council and its partners in the public, private and third sectors have a Vision which sees us working together to close inequality gaps and maximise Trafford's huge potential.

Our vision: Trafford where all our residents, businesses and communities thrive.

Trafford is a lively, prosperous place to put down roots and build a career. The council and Trafford schools employ around 8,000 people, who are central to making the area great. In return for their commitment, the council offers its employees development opportunities, as well as a fair and flexible workplace. The council is a Living Wage Employer.

About the benefits

You will be welcomed into a friendly environment where your personal and professional development will be encouraged. You will have the opportunity to work and grow in a people-centered and values-based organisation that promotes a positive per...