Advanced Practitioner; AES

Located in the heart of South London, Lambeth Borough is a vibrant community of over 317,600 residents. Stretching from the dynamic neighbourhood of Streatham in the South to the iconic landmarks of Waterloo in the North, we are proud to be the 9th largest borough in London. Our diversity is our strength, with more than 130 languages spoken, making Lambeth the home of the Windrush generation, London's largest LGBTQ+ community, and a thriving Portuguese-speaking community.

It is an exciting time to join Lambeth Council, we have bold ambitions for the future of Lambeth’s communities and residents through our Lambeth 2030 Plan ‘Our Future, Our Lambeth.

With exceptional schools, lush green spaces including Brockwell Park, cultural gems like the Black Cultural Archives, and world-renowned institutions such as St Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth offers an enriching and dynamic environment.

Please have a look at our dedicated One Lambeth Values and Behaviours page.

Join the Adolescent Early Support Team. Help Us Change the Story for Adolescents

Some young people face increasing challenges long before they meet the threshold for statutory intervention.

They may be disengaging from education, experiencing family conflict, becoming vulnerable to exploitation, going missing, associating with risky peer groups, struggling with emotional wellbeing, or becoming involved in low-level offending behaviour. Too often, support comes only after risks have become entrenched.

The Adolescent Early Support Team is a prevention and engagement service for young people aged 11-18, designed to intervene at the point of emerging risk and prevent escalation into crisis or statutory services. Through assertive outreach, trusted relationships and adolescent-centred practice, we support young people to reconnect with education, strengthen family relationships and access positive pathways.

The team will operate as Lambeth's adolescent prevention, early support and engagement service, providing intensive, relationship-based support to adolescents who may not engage with traditional services. The team may offer some services out of hours and during weekends.

Our work is trauma-informed, culturally responsive, strengths-based and rooted in contextual safeguarding principles. Crucially for this team, we are also investing in a researcher role to help us understand how we shape the improvements and how we can locally arrange our adolescent services offer in ways that prevent crisis intervention.

• Help shape an innovative new service from the outset
• Work within a research-led, adolescent-focused model
• Deliver meaningful early intervention and prevention
• Be part of a multi-disciplinary team
• Influence system changes and improve outcomes for young people
• Contribute to a service that aims to reduce harm, inequality and escalation into higher-level services

The Advanced Practitioner, social work qualified, will be a key practice leader, supporting complex interventions while helping colleagues develop outstanding adolescent-focused practice.

• Lead on complex cases
• Model high-quality direct work with young people and families
• Support reflective practice and learning across the team
• Coach and mentor practitioners
• Promote trauma-informed and culturally responsive approaches
• Contribute to quality assurance and practice development

• Be recognised as an excellent social work practitioner
• Have extensive experience working with vulnerable adolescents
• Understand contextual and exploitation-related risks
• Be passionate about practice leadership and workforce development
• Have excellent assessment and relationship-building skills

The Adolescent Early Support Team is more than a new service. It is an opportunity to redesign how we support young people at the point where timely intervention can make the greatest difference.

If you believe in the power of relationships, early intervention and adolescent-focused practice, we would love to hear from you.

Join us in helping young people stay safe, stay connected and realise their potential.