Social Worker-Family Safeguarding Service

Our Family Safeguarding Service specialises in delivering high quality Child Protection Services to children and families across Leicestershire. In this role, as an experienced social worker, you will have a focus on overseeing children subject to child protection plans, alongside pre-proceedings and care proceedings, and therefore experience in this area is essential. In Leicestershire we have a fantastic package to provide our workers. This includes the option as a full-time worker to do a 9-day working fortnight, hybrid working, celebrating diversity with a range of events throughout the year, recognition of our staff in annual Pride In Practice events, fantastic learning and training opportunities - enabling our staff to develop and progress within their roles and committed wellbeing support. We are proud of our continuous improvement plan - 'Achieving Excellence through Purposeful Practice which sets out our key values, behaviours and ambitions. We have embedded the Signs of Safety approach throughout our services and this approach mirrors our values of Aspiration, Being Curious and Collaboration. We are focused on working with families and the networks of family, friends and professionals around children, to work in collaboration to achieve shared goals. We are committed to our vision of becoming a trauma informed responsive department where we believe we are "stronger together". Our culture is one of partnership, where we look for solutions and recognise the potential impact of trauma on the children and families we work with and on our staff. We will strive to create a safe, compassionate, healing environment demonstrated through relationships based on trust, respect, hope and empathy. We will achieve this through a spirit of curiosity, by nurturing connections through relationships, making a deliberate effort to know and understand people, and by providing hope for growth and recovery. Learn more about how we are responding to trauma, taking pride in practice and celebrating our achievements in social work here. We support and empower our staff to be the best that they can be. We will give you the support and resources that you need to work in collaboration with children and families., We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

• Have a Social Work degree or equivalent, e.g. CQSW, DipSW (with specialism in children's services).
• Be registered with Social Work England and have evidence of continuing professional development.
• Have experience of working in statutory child protection services and completion of Care Proceedings.
• Have a full valid driving licence and access to a vehicle.
• Be able to evidence your skills and knowledge of creative, innovative and relationship-based social work, working in collaboration with families and professionals. Ideally you will already be confident in the application of the Signs of Safety methodology.
• Demonstrate enthusiasm and passion for practice and be committed to helping us build a real culture of reflection and learning.
• Have retained a strong interest in research and the evidence base for practice and are confident about how this can be used in practice.
• Please ensure your application includes a full career history and provides reasons for any gaps
You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion. In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process., 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.

It's an exciting time to be a part of Children and Family Services at Leicestershire County Council, our staff are at the heart of delivering excellent services to children and families across Leicestershire. Come and join us and make a difference to the lives of children and families in Leicestershire. Our recent Ofsted inspection praised Leicestershire's work to build "strong and long-lasting relationships" with children and families which lead to many families achieving "positive changes" in their lives. They highlighted an "ambitious and child-focused senior leadership that has successfully created a culture where the experiences and progress of children at the heart of social work practice".