Enhanced Social Work Practitioner

WHAT IS INVOLVED

In our Pre-Birth team you will work closely with care leavers, young parents, and families who have previously been involved in care proceedings. By delivering intensive, relationship-based intervention that supports parents to achieve meaningful and sustainable change you will help more children to remain safely within their birth families. Where this is not in the child’s best interest, you will work to find a permanent home for the child as early as possible utilising our early permanence procedures.

As an enhanced practitioner, in addition to holding a reduced caseload, you will use your experience and knowledge to:

• Provide advice and guidance to our Newly Qualified Social Workers to help them build their confidence, resilience, knowledge, and skills in line with the post qualifying standards.
• Plan and facilitate sessions that encourage our Newly Qualified Social Workers to reflect, develop multiple hypotheses and enable peer challenge and critical reflection in decision-making. Sessions will incorporate the Signs of Safety practice model and trauma informed relational practice.
• Provide advice and guidance to Newly Qualified Social Workers on their cases and co‑working more complex cases ensuring this reflection is evident on the child’s record and improves outcomes for the child.
• Work closely with the Practice Leads in our Social Work Academy and your Team Manager to ensure that the Newly Qualified Social Workers have appropriate caseloads in terms of number and complexity, and that they progress well.

We are passionate about social work in County Durham. We are committed to providing a culture where good practice can flourish. You will benefit from high quality professional supervision, a great induction, and access to our strong learning and development offer.

To apply for this role you will:

• Be a social worker with significant experience of work with children, young people and families.
• Have experience of using evidence-based practice to devise effective interventions.
• Have knowledge and experience of implementing legislation and national standards relevant to the role.
• Have the ability to implement a range of social work theories relevant to the role.
• Be committed to improving outcomes for children, young people, families and carers.

We offer a competitive rewards package that includes attractive salaries, a generous annual leave entitlement of 27 days (rising to 32 after five years’ continuous local government service), membership of the excellent contributory career average Local Government Pension Scheme, and a range of flexible working arrangements including hybrid working (home and office) where applicable.

We are a proud equal opportunities employer and believe a diverse workforce brings fresh ideas and drives service improvement. We welcome applications from everyone and make employment decisions based on skills and ability. As a Disability Confident Leader, we actively encourage applications from disabled people and offer support throughout the recruitment process.