Education Safeguarding Lead Wandsworth, England
Job description
Are you passionate about building strong working relationships with schools and colleges?
Do you have creative and innovative ideas to develop education safeguarding practice to get the very best for Wandsworth children?
Do you have a thorough understanding of the key issues schools and colleges manage as part of their safeguarding practice?
We are looking to recruit an experienced social worker, teacher, or similar safeguarding professional to join us in Wandsworth as the Education Safeguarding Lead.
This is an influential post within the School Participation and Performance Service requiring a broad range of safeguarding experience and knowledge.
Come join us and make a difference!
Our vision
Our values inspire our Outstanding Practice Framework, which creates the context for us to build relationships with families that bring about change to support children to live at home wherever possible. Coupled with our implementation of Family Safeguarding we believe we have the best practice conditions we’ve ever had to achieve the best possible outcomes for children and families in Wandsworth.
Our culture has been recognised by Ofsted in January 2023, they highlighted “the healthy culture that has been created in the organisation places children at the centre of its ethos and approach. This is alongside the whole organisation embracing a ‘support and challenge’ model. These developments ensure that everyone is accountable for children’s progress, and their impact is evident at all levels within the service”. ‘Support, challenge, appreciation and kindness’ were seen and heard in every conversation with a range of staff, managers and senior leaders according to our report, and our ‘healthy culture’ was lauded by inspectors.
We are proud of the difference we are making to support children and families in Wandsworth and have invested in all our staff, our leaders as well as partners to enable us to make our engagement with families and communities in Wandsworth a success. We passionately believe that if we invest in new ways of thinking and working, you'll have everything you need to do the job you trained for. We have incredibly sound, solid and strong leadership in Ana Popovici and Nick Pendry, who have an exciting vision that is transforming our approaches to the most vulnerable in society.
About the role
The Education Safeguarding Lead provides advice, support and challenge to schools and colleges across Wandsworth including colleagues in the independent and academy sector. As part of your role, you will work collaboratively with our Social Workers in Schools Team.
You will have the opportunity to work closely with the LADO to support schools to ensure timely reporting and investigations; you have a key role in triage and advice regarding allegations against professionals in education settings.
The Education Safeguarding lead also helps schools develop their own practice by undertaking safeguarding audits and ensure that this learning contributes to DSL development and other training. The post holder also leads on responses to Ofsted complaints delivering responses that support continuous improvement.
About you
You will be an experienced social worker, teacher or similar professional who has a strong background in safeguarding, partnership work and a good understanding of the key issues schools and colleges manage as part of their safeguarding practice.
You will have a thorough knowledge of safeguarding but also use your skills of influence, leadership, and negotiation to support schools and get the very best for children in Wandsworth.
You will be responsible for and work closely with the dedicated Schools’ Safeguarding Training Officer to ensure delivery of training and development and will require an excellent working knowledge of key legislation and guidance as they apply to education settings.
This is a permanent full-time role and key to success is building relationships with schools in person and with social care colleagues in person. There will be some opportunities for virtual working also.
Contact details
For more information or for an informal conversation, please contact either Andrew Hough or Louise Jones on the following:
- Andrew Hough at [email protected]
- Louise Jones at [email protected].
Benefits
We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working including, working from home and other arrangements. Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore. We also offer a generous holiday allowance of 39 paid days (pro rata) including bank holidays and a wide range of learning and development opportunities.
In addition, we offer a comprehensive range of staff benefits such as membership of the Local Government pension scheme, childcare vouchers, new technology scheme, interest-free loans on annual travel cards, discounts with many leisure activities, restaurants, shops, and other establishments. You will also be availed of all training available to the service.
Indicative recruitment timeline
- Closing date: 11:59pm on Wednesday 15th March 2023
- Interview date: Week commencing 27th March 2023
Useful Information: The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received. We strongly advise you to complete your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
Please note that the advertised dates for interviews may change due to the current Covid-19 situation. If they do, we will let you know as soon as possible. Your health and wellbeing are our top priority. Should you become unwell due to Covid-19 during the recruitment process we would very much appreciate receiving an update from you as soon as possible.
Equality statement
Richmond and Wandsworth Councils are committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds bring important and positive contributions to the Councils and can improve the way we deliver services. We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer.
At Wandsworth, we particularly welcome applications from sections of the community who are currently underrepresented within our teams, including black and ethnic minority communities. We understand the value of what a diverse workforce brings to our local authority and therefore, strongly encouraging candidates from these backgrounds to apply to this position.
Important Information
This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) helps employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. It replaces the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).
How to apply?
To be considered for interview your application must highlight your knowledge, skills and experience listed in the Job Profile located at the bottom of the advert.
