Placement Officer

**About Us**:
**THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF SHOFA’S MARKET**

Children’s Services in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where courageous and inspiring professionals bring everything to their work.

Sometimes this even includes heartbreak. Shofa is a shining example. Shofa’s brother suffered with his mental health and died tragically young. She uses his memory as motivation to give Westminster Youth Council members the opportunity to have a voice and get involved in decision making. This passion resulted in in her innovation: The Westminster Youth Market. Here local teenagers learn about entrepreneurship and develop their personal skills. This is an inclusive platform where everyone’s contribution and abilities are celebrated. Inspired by a promising life cut short, Shofa believes without vision there is no direction and every young person should be supported to realise their dreams.

Please view the extraordinary story of Shofa’s Market** here**

**The Role**:
As a Placement Officer, you’ll make your own powerful contribution to people across the Tri-boroughs Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham. Working as part of a vibrant team to meet the needs of Looked After Children, you’ll manage the placement finding, matching, and contracting process to support locality teams to make effective placements. Liaising with foster carers about vulnerable children, you’ll assess and utilise the information they give you to implement support where it’s needed.

You’ll maintain an overview of children’s placements, supporting Social Workers to match and place children into suitable placements. You’ll review and monitor activity and outcomes, working closely with external services to arrange, agree on, and support placements. Managing the children’s placement budget, you’ll maximise the resources at your disposal to prioritise placement stability.

Please refer to the** Job Description** for more information.

**About You**:
An established professional with at least 3 years’ experience of working with Looked After Children, you’ll have an understanding of statutory child-care work, and knowledge of children’s legislation. You’ll have knowledge and understanding of the needs of young people living away from home, best practice in relation to looked after children, and social services provision and statutory responsibilities.

On a personal level, you’ll be an effective communicator, both verbally and in writing, with the ability to work collaboratively across teams and organisations. You’ll have strong administrative and organisational skills and the ability to use data and budget information to make effective decisions. Most importantly, you’ll be a person passionate about improving outcomes for Looked After Children across the tri-boroughs. This is a fantastic opportunity to get involved in the incredible work we do, and to fast track your career in the process

**What We Offer**:
Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to over 250,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.