Bradford Metropolitan District Council

Department of Children’s Services, Children’s Social Care

Children’s Social Work Service

PRACTICE SUPERVISOR  - With Responsibility for Missing Children

Established Contract

PO4 (SCP 41 – 44) £37,107 – £39,961 pa pro rata for part time posts.

37 hours

What did the Ofsted JTAI (April 2017) inspectors say about Bradford?

• Leadership within children’s social care is effective and senior managers are creating a healthy environment in Bradford for effective social work to flourish’.

Here at Bradford Council, we understand the importance of having great leaders in our service. This not only allows us to provide the highest possible service but also helps us to develop our people to become the very best professionals. As a Practice Supervisor with responsibility for missing you will support the Team Manager to develop excellent casework and practice around missing.  You will have a overall responsibility coordinating services and support for missing children in Bradford.  You will work closely with key partners such as the police, health and education.  You will also provide training for social workers, residential units and private care providers. Within the missing role you will have responsibly for providing senior management with reports to identify missing trends in Bradford. You should have knowledge of missing children, the safeguarding strategies to manage risks to missing children and supporting social workers to ensure support is in place to reduce episodes of missing children who are Looked After Children and non Looked After. Whilst you won’t be carrying caseloads you will still have direct involvement with service users and be able to make a significant impact to the frontline practice by championing Signs of Safety (SOS) practice framework and leading on group supervision.  You will know what excellent social work practice looks like for children and families and be passionate to nurture this with our social workers. This is a great development opportunity for excellent practitioners who wish to progress into a leadership role.

                            
We have placed ourselves on the forefront of innovation in social work, rethinking our approach and processes in order to maximise the impact of the social work practice we provide. We are one of the authorities that have secured funding from the DfE to be part of the England Innovations Programme. We’ve looked far and wide for what we believe are the best models for care for children and young people. Our intention is to provide inspirational care, tailored to the individual needs of the children and young people.

Bradford is the 4^th largest Local Authority with a population of 530,000 of which 150,000 are children and young people, making us one of the key cities with a young age group population. To ensure we achieve even better outcomes for children and young people.  We are on a journey to excellence; ensuring children are at the heart of everything we do.

Bradford is a dynamic and forward thinking council which is reviewing how it delivers our services to our customers in order to improve educational outcomes, protect vulnerable children and young people in the district, and reduce the effects of childhood poverty.

We have high expectations from our teams and it is therefore essential that they feel that they have the proper support in place, making them confident in their actions and the decisions they make.

Our Practice Supervisors will:

• Be Passionate about excellent social work practice.
• Hold a DipSW or equivalent qualification and are registered with the HCPC as a qualified social worker.
• Have at least 4 Years Social Work experience.
• Know what excellence looks like and champion best practice.
• Have a good working knowledge of Signs of Safety approach.
• Ability to support, develop and inspire others.
• Have excellent verbal and written communication skills and be able to make good decisions based on the information available, ensuring effective relationships with other professionals.

What do we offer as a Council?  We provide numerous Employee opportunities and benefits including:

• A structured and practical based induction programme.

• CPD opportunities, including opportunities to take part in our leadership development programme.
•  Regular supervision and annual appraisal of practice, ensuring clarity of purpose and providing an opportunity to take stock, raise ideas and obtain valuable and constructive feedback.
• Excellent training and learning opportunities, including opportunities to develop practice based on interests and passions, through our practitioner led forums.

• A culturally diverse workforce reflecting our communities.    

What do some of our social workers say about working in Bradford Children’s Services? 

Visit our website for more information: https://www.bradford.gov.uk/jobs/childrens-services/make-bradford-your-next-step-in-social-care/

“We are making differences to children’s lives by acting appropriately to risk”

“Workers support one another, as do the team managers and this helps us to keep the children as our focus”

What did the Ofsted JTAI (April 2017) inspectors say about Bradford?

• 'Leadership within children’s social care is effective and senior managers are creating a healthy environment in Bradford for effective social work to flourish’.
• Across partners there is commitment to continual improvement to offer a wide range of high quality services to meet the diverse needs of children and families.

 As a local authority we also offer a variety of competitive employee benefits including generous leave entitlement, career average pension scheme with excellent benefits, access to a range of salary sacrifice schemes and discounts.  

Relocation Package: A relocation package may be available for successful candidates who meet the criteria.

An enhanced disclosure check with the Disclosure and Barring Service will be undertaken for this post.
 

The closing date: 20th August 2018