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Grade / Salary: Grade 15; £49,890 - £51,903 + £5,000 welcome payment + £2,500 retention payment

“Have you got the enthusiasm and drive to support your Team Manager and guide your team to support the needs of our community?”

The Opportunity

We have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Social Worker, registered with Social Work England, to join our multi-disciplinary Edge of Care Team ‘Families Together’. You will be working closely with colleagues in CAMHS; Croydon University Hospital and community services to support young people presenting in crisis to avoid admission to hospital and enable children to be discharged safely.

We are expanding our team with a Senior Social Worker who is experienced and passionate about leading practice which achieves positive change for children and families. This is an exciting opportunity to apply your experience to complex direct family work whilst also supporting and developing the practice of the team.

Why join us?

In Croydon, our Children's Services has an established Systemic Practice model, experienced leaders, and high support for practitioners. Croydon people and staff are diverse, and we celebrate difference through focus on anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practice. We are committed to delivering excellent social work practice and services to our children and families. Over the past two years, the Families Together team has developed a model of working with families grounded in relationally based, trauma informed and systemic applications of practice. We have been able to demonstrate strong and successful outcomes against our objectives which evidences that our work has enabled many families to stay together and prevent adolescents from entering care. This success has led to further developing the team including the additional roles.

The Families Together team work with adolescents and their families where there is a risk of the child entering the care system. We also work to reunify children back home to their families after a period of being looked after. Families Together offers an intensive service to families who are in crisis and where there is a high-risk context. We are driven by a value that all families have innate abilities, strengths, and resilience. We work with families to create new stories, build connections, and reduce risk/distress.

Families together is a fast-paced team where responsiveness, adaptability and flexibility are key. It involves building effective and collaborative professional relationships with partners, families, and young people quickly and often in the most challenging of circumstances.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone keen to broaden and develop their systemic skill set; contribute further to the development of a successful team in a new service and become part of a team committed to improving outcomes for children and families in Croydon. This role would suit someone wanting to start or continue their practice leadership journey whilst also retaining a strong link to direct work and practice.

Benefits of Working for Croydon

• Highly competitive salary up to £51,900 plus a welcome payment of £5,000
• A pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 20%
• 31 days annual leave in addition to Bank Holidays
• Accredited Systemic Practice training, years 1 & 2 provided in-house
• A range of CPD opportunities
• Management development programmes
• Manageable caseloads
• Investment into your staff well-being
• Good management support for practitioners, regular supervision, group supervision led by a systemic therapist and access to a clinical therapist to support your work directly.
• Hybrid working policy enabling work from home and flexible working approaches to support your work-life balance.

About you

We are therefore looking for candidates who have the ability to:

• Support, deliver and supervise structured interventions that enable families to develop strengths and skills, build resilience and achieve positive, sustainable behaviour change.
• Deliver and supervise a range of interventions which are evidence based and informed using ideas from systemic practice, motivational interviewing, solution focused and trauma informed practice models
• Work proactively and effectively with fathers.
• Deliver and supervise intervention and responses to families in the context of crisis and imminent family breakdown which focus on their safety and an immediate reduction of risk
• Work restoratively with a strong emphasis on supporting families to build connection and improve relationships between them. This involves helping families to develop shared goals for improving relationships, exploring communication and conflict resolution to avoid family breakdown
• Make assessments in high-risk contexts, implement plans and review accordingly
• Support the work of the Team Manager in a variety of ways including team development, supervision, screenings, consultations, chairing of large meetings and attendance at key meetings/panels
• Influence and build upon the performance of a multi-skilled team, ensuring that cases are allocated effectively in terms of skills and experience suited to the complexity of the case.
• Candidates will need to have a minimum of three years post qualifying experience, including in a statutory children’s services. Prior adolescent, mental health or therapeutic experience is useful but not essential.
• Candidates will need to be able to demonstrate good experience, knowledge, and skills of working with diverse communities, actively challenging discrimination through a relationally based practice model; being able to work with a complex range of needs and risks; and contributing to positive outcomes for children, young people and families.
• Candidates will need to have good knowledge and understanding of systemic and trauma informed practice ideas, relevant research and national developments, and policies relating to children’s social care.