Senior Practitioner - Aspire Complex Safeguarding Team

 

Application Deadline: 6th May 2024

Shortlisting Date: 7th May 2024

Interview Date: 17th May 2024

Interview Type: Face to Face

 

 

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced children’s social worker to join our complex safeguarding team as a senior social work practitioner. If you are passionate and knowledgeable about complex safeguarding, love working with young people, and are ready to take the next step in your social work career then we would love to hear from you!

 

 

The Aspire complex safeguarding team provides a well-established safeguarding and support response to children and young people who are at risk of, or experiencing child exploitation, modern slavery, and trafficking in Stockport. Our complex safeguarding team has recently become part of a joint service with youth justice, strengthening relationships and pathways to support for children where harm outside the home is a key concern. There is a co-located multi-agency offer with children’s social care, police, health, and youth justice working together to ensure that there is a child-centred and relational response which promotes safety and builds on strengths. 

 

We are looking for an experienced social worker who is passionate about working with adolescents, is a strong advocate, and with professional knowledge and expertise in issues relating to child exploitation. You will be innovative, creative, and tenacious about supporting young people to achieve positive outcomes and will work well as part of a multi-agency team. 

 

You will work closely with key partners in Stockport, such as education, youth justice, police, health, and Mosaic drug and alcohol service, as part of a holistic offer of support and safeguarding to adolescents. You will help us to deliver an approach that is trauma-informed and creates safety through trusted relationships. 

 

 

In Stockport, we are driven by our values – so we want social workers who are motivated by building relationships with children and families and to take an empowering approach to working with families. We would ideally like a senior practitioner for this role to have experience of locality social work, including court proceedings.   

 

To help us meet the needs of our children and families and to help them when they need it most, we need social workers just like you, people who are hard-working, passionate about making a difference, and wanting children to reach their full potential. You’ll also be a team player, so you’re able to share your own knowledge with others and continue to learn. A key part of this role will be to provide advice and reflective consultation to the wider workforce about exploitation, and there will also be opportunities to contribute to training and our twice yearly ‘week of action’ which raises awareness across the workforce and communities. 

 

We know that social work is a tough job and it’s a big ask. So, to do it well, you need to be fully supported every step of the way. This is why we have an excellent package of benefits, including additional tailored support if you need it, all of which are detailed below. 

 

Learning and development is a key part of our culture, at every stage. We know you’ll come with a host of skills and things to share, but we know you need to continue to learn so you can thrive. So, we will support you to flourish and develop in your career. 

 

We would love to speak to you about our offer, our career development pathways, and the difference you could make for the children and families in Stockport. 

 

 

In Stockport, our vision is for all children to have the best start in life. We co-designed an outcomes framework that we are committed to as our vision for supporting children and families in Stockport which is  

 

• I feel safe  

 

• I feel part of my local community  

 

• I enjoy good health and wellbeing  

 

• I am confident and able to reach my goals  

 

• I am happy and have people I can trust  

 

• The people that love and care for me are enabled to do this  

 

• My voice is heard and acted upon  

 

We have a model of restorative practice which means relationships are central to everything we do, not just with our families but with our colleagues too. We care about our use of language too, and we are very ambitious for the families we work with. 

 

We believe that change is possible through the building of strong relationships where there is both high support, and where necessary, high challenge. All colleagues are offered training to help us develop this restorative approach.  

 

To support our social workers with this, we have teams with experienced leaders, and a dedicated social work workforce development team, providing reflective and clinical supervision and we also offer innovative support services for families, which have been praised by the DFE – including New Beginnings and Comma.  

 

 

• Strong and visible leadership, including a dedicated team leader who you will see regularly for formal and informal supervision. 

 

• We have a strong workforce development programme – we provide an introduction to restorative practice to set the foundation, and a host of other training including working with SEND needs. 

 

• We encourage continual CPD and allow for protected time for you to do this. All our social workers are offered a yearly professional development review (PDR) to see what’s next in your career. 

 

• We provide a solid induction into social work for our social workers, with a gradual increase in caseload and complexity of work. 

 

• We offer high quality reflective supervision on a monthly basis from your line manager - all of our team leaders are trained in reflective and systemic supervision. There are opportunities for group and reflective supervision delivered by senior practitioners too. 

 

• As our services are integrated, so there’s a wealth of expert advice all around you. We provide opportunities to seek specialist advice and consultation from various services such as our IROs, Aspire team, domestic abuse service and our disability and short breaks team. 

 

• We offer a full corporate induction too where you can meet other professionals across the council - our senior leadership also maintain a relationship with our new starters, to ensure that they are settling in well. 

 

 

• As a local authority, Stockport offers a supportive and vibrant working environment – our teams are dedicated to delivering the very best outcomes for our children and families and we work together with our multi-agency partners in a positive and upbeat way.  

 

• You can find out more about what it’s like working for Stockport Family here.  

 

At Stockport Council we are one ambitious team on a mission to create opportunities for everyone who lives, works and spends time in the borough. Working at Stockport Council means contributing to one of the most thriving towns in the North. We’re keen to recruit people with the right values and behaviours that can help us ensure our workplace values are at the heart of everything we do.  

 

We are proud to be recognised under the Good Employment Charter as an organisation committed to the wellbeing of our colleagues. As members of the charter, we have been recognised as a great place to work for all colleagues and pledge to pay the real living wage, engage staff in key decisions and endorse fair and flexible working conditions. 

 

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