Senior Practitioner

As part of your application, you must provide us with a Supporting Statement which outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy. For more information, check out the How to Apply section of our Career Site. Without a Supporting Statement, your application will not be progressed. Please upload your Supporting Statement at the section marked ‘upload resumé’. Your Supporting Statement must not be a CV. More information is available on our Career site at www.fife.gov.uk/jobs/supportingstatement .

Job Details

This exciting opportunity is to work as the Permanence Senior within the Enhanced Children and Families Team which has a Lead for children’s planning for children and young people subject to a Compulsory Supervision Order at home, foster care, kinship care, residential care, including secure placements. This role varies with focus on parenting capacity assessments to support care planning, permanence planning as well as reviewing plans which may lead to the potential reunification of families.

The senior roles take on a lead of Child Protection & Permanence and will be responsible, in conjunction with the Team Manager to support the team to deliver a quality service to the children and families we work with. This role is for the Permanence Senior where you will carry a complex but smaller caseload whereby you will undertake assessments in order to provide logical and coherently evidenced recommendations to enable children to be with their families wherever possible, or review plans to which may lead to the potential reunification of families. You will also undertake initial assessments, develop Child’s Plans which are co-produced with families as part of a relational approach, you will identify, assess and manage risk as well as Safety Plan for our children and young people at risk of significant harm.

As part of your specialised role within the team, you will be required to have an up-to-date understanding of permanence within the team; this includes permanence at home, in kinship care, foster care and adoptions. You will strive to make sure plans are progressed in a timely manner and support staff in the team to deliver on The Promise and be able to support the Team Manager in this endeavour.

You will be skilled in providing written reports for Child Protection Case Conferences, LAC Reviews and reports to SCRA with informed recommendations concerning care/action/safety plans and identifying any further actions. You would then utilise this skill to develop and support social workers in the team to increase their confidence in their written skills, analysis and assessments. You will have an ability to chair LAC Core Group Meetings and CP Core Group Meetings to ensure there is a clear plan in place, to include the voice of the child, views of the family in a multi-agency forum. You will require to quality ensure practice within the team and provide appropriate feedback.

You will be required to undertake professional supervision of Social Workers and Social Work Assistants supporting their professional development and ensuring Council policy and procedures are followed; we want to create a team of autonomous, compassionate workers with a clear vision of keeping children at the centre.

You will be required to work within service processes and procedures to assess and undertake appropriate and relevant planning for children to ensure positive outcomes are completed within timescales. We want to be firmly embedded within The Promise where all our children and young people grow up healthy, safe and loved.

You should have experience in being able to successfully negotiate and liaise with partner agencies to plan interventions and supports for children and their families.

The Person

A Diploma in Social Work is essential, as is registration with the Scottish Social Services Council.

You will have one of the following

An accredited post-qualifying award (e.g. Certificate in Child Protection Studies, Mental Health Officer Accreditation, Practice Teacher Award, etc.) or a commitment to work towards achieving this within 2 years of appointment.

You should have considerable experience in a relevant setting.

You must have the ability to travel throughout Fife.

You will have knowledge and understanding of Child and Adult Protection guidelines and information sharing protocols and experience of joint working to achieve common goals.

Before confirming to your appointment, you will be required to obtain PVG scheme membership through Disclosure Scotland.

Further Information

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