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Professional Education Consultant

Job introduction

We have an unique model of relationship-based social work in Children's Services in Brighton & Hove. How we support our social workers is crucial to our model. Our Professional Education Consultants (PECs) play a key role in this, supporting students, newly-qualified social workers, and learning across the social work system. We have a rare vacancy for a part-time PEC to join us now.

Closing date: Midnight on 12th June 2023

Interview date: 20 June 2023

For an informal discussion, please contact Tom Stibbs (Principal Social Worker) - [email protected] or 07717303206

About the role

We are increasing our PEC capacity as we now recruit more newly-qualified social workers to be part of our robust and positively evaluated ASYE programme. The PECs are responsible for running the ASYE programme, arranging the induction and training schedule, facilitating Practice Development Groups, and providing ongoing support to ASYEs and their supervisors. The PECs also play a key role in supporting student social workers on placement with us, running Student Learning Hubs, completing the Practice Educator role, and co-ordinating support for students with their supervisors, tutors and the Universities. In addition, our PECs have played a key role in developing and delivering the PE1 course for social workers interested in becoming practice educators.

The PECs are based in our Partners in Change Hub, a multi-disciplinary team that provides specialist support to social workers and families. They also work closely with their colleagues in adult services, East Sussex County Council and the Universities of Brighton and Sussex as part of our Teaching Partnership, the South Coast Regional Centre for Social Work Education.

We are looking for candidates who have a passion for supporting social workers' learning and extensive experience in practice education. You should be able to support and inspire students and newly-qualified social workers as well as manage the complexities of working across social work teams and with a variety of organisations, with differing policies, procedures and goals. We require someone who has experience of teaching and training including supporting group work. You must have a good knowledge of the requirements of social work education as well as the Practice Educator Professional Standards and the Professional Capabilities Framework.

In return we offer the opportunity to help lead a social work system that recognises that you and our social workers are our greatest asset and we strive to give you the time and active support you need so that you can make a real difference to children’s lives and realise our vision for social work. Our pod model is based on providing emotional containment for social workers, including a supervision model of weekly group supervision, 1:1 supervision, and Reflective Practice Groups for practitioners and managers at every level, as well as a clear CPD pathway. We have a low workload approach where we aim to make sure that most of our social workers work with less than 18 children (around 8 families).

We have set up an anti-racist project as we recognised that we need to do further work to support Black and global majority families in the city and to support our staff from Black and global majority communities. Hear more about anti-racist practice from our workers including our anti-racist lead practitioner

find out more about our ASYE programme from the ASYEs themselves

We don’t need to tell you about why you should work for Brighton & Hove – our staff will do that - Hear more about Brighton & Hove’s model of relationship-based social work and how it makes a difference for families and practitioners.

We are proud of the feedback from our social workers and from Ofsted: “Social workers’ morale is high and they enjoy working in Brighton & Hove.”

Hear from our practitioners about why they think Brighton & Hove is a great place to live and work

For these posts, you must hold a Professional Social Work Qualification and be registered as a social worker with Social Work England

Please read our Apply for a job at the council (brighton-hove.gov.uk) pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to complete your education and work history and provide answers to some shortlisting questions. Your answers to the shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our guidance here (Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

Additional information

Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

Work Permits: We may be able to obtain a Work Permit for this post but this is subject to meeting the requirements of the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) Points-based Immigration System. Please see Gov.uk for more information on the Skilled Worker Visa.

Part office / part home – hybrid - We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining.

Working arrangements are subject to Government guidance at the time. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us (brighton-hove.gov.uk)

Company information

Encouraging a diverse workforce

Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.