Practitioner

We're recruiting a Senior Practitioner to join our Family Support Team, helping children and families with complex needs achieve greater safety, stability and wellbeing. You'll manage complex cases, using your social work experience to make confident decisions and deliver effective support for children and their families. You'll also play an important role in strengthening practice across the team. You'll provide professional guidance and mentoring to colleagues, support them with challenging casework and work closely with Team Managers to manage risk and resolve complex issues.

This is a rewarding role for an experienced, qualified and registered social worker who wants to combine direct practice with developing others and contributing to improvements across the service., At Milton Keynes City Council, we aim to make a difference every day. We're dedicated, respectful and collaborative. We act as one council, and we work hard to create cleaner, safer and healthier communities while tackling inequalities and supporting people to thrive.,

• Take responsibility for complex and sensitive children's social care cases, completing effective assessments, care planning and interventions to support children's safety, development and wellbeing.
• Provide expert social work advice and guidance, mentoring colleagues and supervising the casework of social workers, social work assistants, students and other professionals as required.
• Work with managers to resolve complex or contentious case issues, assess risk and make sure timely action is taken to safeguard children and young people.
• Support the allocation, prioritisation and planning of caseloads, helping the team provide a consistent and effective service.
• Lead or contribute to service development, quality audits, policies and procedures, while sharing current legislation, research and good practice with colleagues.
• Represent Milton Keynes City Council in complex public and private law proceedings where required, including preparing court statements and care plans and giving oral evidence.

  A qualified social worker with a Degree in Social Work, Diploma in Social Work, Certificate of Qualification in Social Work or equivalent, with current registration with Social Work England.

• Bringing strong specialist knowledge of children's social care, you'll understand relevant legislation, policy, research and good practice and know how to apply these to complex situations.
• Confident when situations are challenging, you can assess complex family circumstances, identify and respond to risk, solve problems and develop robust care plans.
• An effective and thoughtful communicator, you can explain complex or sensitive issues clearly, ask challenging questions when needed and work constructively with children, families, colleagues and professional partners.
• Ready to share your expertise, you'll support, supervise and mentor colleagues, help evaluate practice and contribute to a supportive culture where everyone can continue to develop.

Full UK Driving Licence and access to a vehicle To be successful in this role, you'll need a full UK driving licence and access to a vehicle. If we offer you the role, we'll ask you to provide evidence of your driving licence and vehicle insurance, including cover for business use. We're unable to confirm an appointment until these documents are received.

Milton Keynes City Council is a large, modern and financially stable employer with around 2,500 people working across our eight areas. Together we provide local residents and businesses with a wide range of important round-the-clock services and aim to make our city a better place to live. We work hard because of the demands placed on us, like protecting children from harm or preventing…