Social Worker
£35,751 to £44,790 plus £4000 market supplement | Havering | Permanent
Social Worker - Job Profile
The summer school holiday means siblings Samantha and Callum aged 8 and 5 are at home having to make a meal to share, out of whatever they can find. Their mum Carol is a single parent with ongoing mental health issues, who is not cooperating with local authority services, by refusing to allow access and not revealing the full truth about the situation she and the family are in. This means that this young family are not receiving the vital support they need.
At Havering, we know that children’s social workers are often dealing with sensitive issues, much like the situation described above, needing to make extremely difficult decisions. However, we also know it’s very rewarding, and we value our social workers by recognising their devotion and care, by always seeking to make a change in the lives of those they support.
We provide systemic care with lasting effects through our Face to Face model of practice – achieving sustainable positive outcomes. Havering’s ethos is embodied by our approach to fitting the system to the family rather than asking the family to fit to the system. This is done by working collaboratively with children and families by having ongoing conversations so they can receive the most effective forms of intervention. With your expertise and motivation to support our children and families, Havering is the ideal place for your social work career.
About us
As a borough, we are currently experiencing the most exciting period of growth in our history, taking huge steps forward in our improvement journey. We are building a Children’s Services to match, by nurturing a culture of achieving excellent outcomes and empowering families to create sustainable solutions for themselves. The development and implementation of our outstanding service, relies on our social workers to be the driving force for innovation and strive to deliver the best possible care, allowing us to take our place as a centre of excellence for social work practice.
We pride ourselves in empowering our staff by providing excellent training and great benefits. Our Social Work Academy equips our workforce with the tools, support and the space to do their best work, by playing a key role in the development of social work professionals at all levels. Our academy ensures our team receives accredited training on systemic practice, manageable caseloads, quality supervision and mobile working as a standard to allow more time to work with our community. Havering invests heavily into our social workers, not only offering highly competitive salaries and exceptional benefits, but also our ability to grow people from within and develop already talented professionals is what makes us special.
On joining Havering, you will find our supportive, visible and approachable leadership are happy to share their skills and experiences to guide you whenever you need it. We are committed to providing a healthy work life balance, whether that be via flexible working or through our corporate health and wellbeing initiatives. The pandemic has been difficult for many of us in many ways, however our leadership have consistently maintained communication via virtual service Q&A sessions and fortnightly briefings. We are proud to be a forward-thinking organisation that embraces new ways of working to the benefit of our employees and residents alike.
Havering is a fantastic place to live and work! Benefiting from excellent transport links, being only 18 minutes from London Liverpool Street Station, with our offices located centrally in Romford. We also offer staff onsite subsidised car parking, making our offices easily accessible via the M25, A12, A406 and A127.
About the role
As an Intervention & Support Service social worker you will support children, young people and their families where there is an identified need for on-going intervention. Our Children’s Services will benefit from this post by working towards achieving our aim to enable our children and families to lead happy, healthy lives.
We place a strong emphasis on permanency and focus on the principle that, wherever possible, we should preserve continuity of a social worker for children. The service places an emphasis on stability whether that can be achieved through good parenting within the family, or through a stable placement outside the family.
About you
Are you a qualified social worker, with 2 or more years of experience, registered with Social Work England, have excellent communication skills, dedicated to making a positive impact, and able to build trust with the people you work with. In this role, you will be able to understand and relate to our diverse community, fundamentally appreciating the issues around disproportionality. Our social workers hold a pivotal role, and therefore it is crucial that you are patient with people who maybe going through a varying range of issues such as alcohol misuse, mental health problems or neglect.
As a social worker in Havering, you will feel comfortable with and hold substantial experience of managing defined caseloads and working collaboratively to facilitate high support and high challenge through co-production. As well as being passionate about utilising creative means of engagement and collaboration in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for children, young people and families in need of support.
Our services are diverse and we have interesting and stimulating opportunities for everyone, as well as various career pathways you can explore. No two days are ever the same, as you’ll be working with a number of children, young people and families who are all facing different and at times complex situations.
However these are not the only skills and characteristics we are looking for. To be shortlisted for the position you must be able to clearly evidence the following within your application:
- Finding and executing innovative solutions in difficult situations
- Strive to always deliver the best possible care
- Passionate about practicing social
- Conduct yourself with the upmost empathy, sensitivity and professionalism
For an informal discussion about the post, please contact John Sarpong, Team Manager on 01708 431920 or by email on john.sarpong@havering.gov.uk. This advert will close at 23:59 on the 13 August 2021.
Additional Information
The London Borough of Havering is a Disability Confident employer. Candidates who declare that they have a disability in accordance with the Equality