Team Leader Home Finding

Portsmouth is a great waterfront city and a vibrant place to live and work. It is an island city with an "inner city" feel, a seaside location packed with attractions and events, and the advantage of fantastic countryside on its doorstep. With fast road and rail links to London, Brighton and major airports, and ferry links to Europe, it is the perfect place to live and work. Portsmouth has a strong history of partnership working and has successfully integrated several local services. The Service: Children's Social Care provides social work interventions to children in need (including children with disabilities and those subject to protection plans) and children looked after and care leavers. It is the responsibility of Children's Social Care to offer a range of options for children who need placements outside their families, including fostering and residential care alongside adoption, special guardianship, and kinship arrangements. The Home Finding Team is responsible for identifying suitable care for children we care for, including foster care, semi-independent provision, and children's homes. Your New Role: You will have responsibility for managing the work related to finding homes for children which provide warm, kind, and safe care, where they feel loved and can flourish. You will manage a team, offering scrutiny and challenge to promote a creative and dynamic team, committed to ever improving outcomes. You will lead by example having integrity, promoting equal access, and being aspirational in the work. You will create positive working relationships across the team, with other professionals, foster carers and provider agencies, to promote good outcomes for children and their families. You will play a significant role in the development, implementation, and monitoring of contracts for the placement of children in the local authority's care.

You have a recognised professional qualification in social work (Social Work Diploma/Degree/MSc or equivalent) and be registered with Social Work England. You are curious, creative and solution focused, and passionate about making a difference for young people. You have experience of managing staff or students and can support staff to grow and learn through reflective supervision. You have good organisational, leadership and communication skills, can organise your own time and prioritise conflicting demands, and want to be part of a team. You have a robust understanding of the care market and know how to broker effectively within this, and are committed to the delivery of positive outcomes for children, young people and families.

We really appreciate our employees and fully realise they are essential to our success and look to offer an inclusive, supportive working environment where employees can reach their potentials with a healthy work life balance, offering the following rewards:

• Generous annual leave (27 days per year rising to 31, pro rata for part time hours) with the potential to purchase additional leave.
• A fantastic pension which allows you the opportunity to pay in more for that greater return.
• Flexible working options including hybrid working with a minimum of three days office based per week pro rata, giving you the flexibility to work up to two days at home every week. Hybrid working is dependent on the role and service needs, exact details will be discussed with you at interview.
• Access to a wide range of training and development opportunities including apprenticeships.
• Extensive wellbeing support through the Employee Assistance Programme
• Discount on travel, travel loans and the bike loan scheme
• Discounts on a wide range of goods and services - access a range of discounts and offers from thousands of restaurants, shops and more.
Staff rewards: https://careers.portsmouth.gov.uk/working-for-the-council