Senior Social Work Practitioner

**Hours: 37 per week**

**Contract Type: Permanent**

**Service Area: Children and Young People Services**

**Department: Safeguarding Outcomes / Care Outcomes**

If your passion is around collaborative work with families, centred on building relationships in order to help families develop resilience and make changes for their children, then we are the Local Authority for you. Working with families to keep children at home wherever possible, our dynamic teams work with families from point of contact through to long term support and intervention. Our practice model is underpinned by relationship-based, systemic approaches to facilitate change, alongside trauma informed practice.

Bath and North East Somerset Children’s Social Care are an innovative small Local Authority focused on therapeutic assessment and support. Rated Good by OFSTED, with continued vision and drive to improve further.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Senior Social Work Practitioner (with a Social Work qualification) to join one of our Family Support Teams, within the Safeguarding Outcomes Service. We are committed to being a dynamic and creative Local Authority, working hard to think differently about how we approach our work with families. We are deeply committed to providing tailored high-quality services and well thought out interventions to families to keep children safe. Our practice is values-driven with a strong ethos of child-focused interventions.

**About the role**:
You will work in partnership with an enthusiastic hub consisting of a Team Manager, Deputy Team Manager, Senior Practitioners, Social Workers, Family Support Practitioners and Administrative staff.

The post holder will manage their own caseload, which will include children and families with complex needs. You will be able to evidence a strong ability to analyse information and formulate outcome focused plans for children and families, as well as a commitment to driving forward care plans and legal work to protect children and promote children’s outcomes through permanency. Applicants must be confident in writing professional assessments/reports as well as presenting their evidence verbally, including in court proceedings. Applicants need to have very strong organisational skills to manage and prioritise their work effectively and in a timely way and will be committed to working as part of a team to support colleagues in delivering optimum services to children and families.

As a senior practitioner, you will have an opportunity to develop your supervisory skills through supervision of a Family Support Practitioner, as well as being able to access Practice Educator Professional Standards (PEPS) training to support a student social worker or taking on a mentoring role for newly qualified social workers on the ASYE programme from other teams.

**You can expect**:

- A comprehensive induction
- Regular supervision - at a minimum of monthly one to one
- Weekly group reflective supervision to promote thoughtful and creative practice, supported by your peers and managers
- Monthly Peer Circles to ensure strong relationships and support between Senior Practitioners across the teams
- Extensive training opportunities, which include SARI workshops around culturally sensitive practice, opportunities to join a 6-month long training in Systemic Practice delivered by the Centre for Systemic Social Work, attachment-based workshops, and trauma-informed workshops
- Excellent administrative support with 3 admin staff supporting each team
- Tri-annual Social Work Conferences with guest speakers who are experts in the field. Examples of previous conferences have included Donald Forrester, Brid Featherstone, Rebecca Carr-Hopkins, ‘Annie’ from Surviving Safeguarding, and Dr Karen Treisman
- Paid Social Work England membership renewal
- Access to Research in Practice
- Laptop and iPhone to promote flexible working, to enhance your work-life balance
- Relocation Payments are available
- A stable leadership team
- A stable and committed team, with very low rates of agency workers, and low vacancy rates
- A relevant social work qualification
- Significant social work experience
- Knowledge of the legislative framework that governs children’s services
- Knowledge of theory and practice applicable to social work
- IT skills to enable operation of standard electronic systems
- Passion, commitment, and motivation to support the most vulnerable families in our area

Your main place of work will be the award-winning, modern Civic Centre in Keynsham, halfway between Bath and Bristol, easily accessible via car or public transport, with a train station 5 minutes’ walk away.

**Why B&NES Council?**

We offer a wide range of benefits, to ensure that you are paid fairly for your work, have the flexibility to enjoy a great work/life balance, and have the support you need. These include:

- A competitive salary package
- A range of flexible working and hybrid working options, includ