Principal Social Worker & Head of Workforce Development, Practice & Quality Assurance

This postholder is the statutory Principal Social Worker (Care Act S1.27) and will directly report to the Assistant Director for Adult Social Care Operations and Transformation. The role will also have a dotted line to the Executive Director of Health and Adult Social Care.

The Principal Social Worker is accountable to ensure that the highest standard of social work practice is embedded across the organisation, by providing skilled and experienced leadership and practice knowledge to social workers and social care practitioners, the organisation and its partners.

This role is responsible for ensuring adherence to many complex social work functions associated with adult safeguarding and statutory social work functions associated with The Care Act, The Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act. The post holder will be required to balance professional judgements on authority-wide, non-standard problems and will be responsible for putting in place appropriate and complex partnerships. This will require excellent negotiation skills and the need to find solutions where there are many conflicting factors.

The environment in which the post-holder will work is complex and challenging and the role requires a range of both analytical skills and sensitivity, as well as political awareness and sound judgement.

This role will play a key strategic leadership role in preparing for and ongoing adherence to the CQC regulatory assurance framework in the delivery of statutory social care responsibilities under the Care Act 2014 and includes responsibility for practice quality assurance and workforce development.

About Us
As a member of the senior management team, the role will act as a change agent, contributing to the strategic leadership of services, developing and implementing standards to ensure a cohesive and high performing Adult social care workforce which embraces cultural change and improved strength based practice to our residents.

Have a recognised Social Work qualification and be registered with Social Work England with extensive post qualifying experience
Have strong leadership skills, modelling a performance culture and constructively building achievement, confidence and skills in others
Question and challenge conventional thinking, with a continual eye on the bigger picture in terms of the corporate context and external environment
Ability to challenge and influence at all levels
Demonstrate detailed knowledge of legislation & research
Have detailed knowledge of the qualification and competency frameworks of social work professionals
Work successfully with key stakeholders including Members, residents, businesses, communities, partner organisations and other public services
Management experience over a range of professional roles with significant experience of managing functions in a number of specifications, eg: Older People, Mental Health, Learning Disability, Safeguarding
Experience as a practice educator or supervisor
Ability to undertake workforce analysis and workforce development programmes to ensure practice excellence
Demonstrate a high level of confidence
Ability to communicate both verbally and in writing to a wide range of audiences (including ability to write clear and concise reports & presentations)
Show initiative in identifying areas of practice improvement and in ensuring dissemination of pertinent information at all levels, Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we're committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We're constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

In addition we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff supported by our IT infrastructure, Google Chromebooks and Google Apps, which have acted as a key enabler for collaborative and streamlined working. We operate hybrid working, a flexible working model which allows staff to work from a variety of locations and staff are not required to work within the office 5 days a week. It enables staff to achieve a work life balance whilst still meeting the needs of the organisation.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:

Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
Three volunteering days per year in Kingston
Flexible and agile working arrangements
Comprehensive learning and development programme
Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
Interest free season ticket loans
Local Government Pension Scheme
Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
Zip car scheme
Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
Subsidised gym membership