An opportunity has arisen for a senior social worker to join the Connect Permanence and Recruitment Team.
The Connect Service in Ealing incorporates the Children Looked After Team, the Fostering Support Team, the Court Team, the Connected Person’s Team and the Permanence and Recruitment Team. In Connect we primarily draw from the Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP) model to help understand our children through an attachment and trauma-informed lens. By understanding the child in this way, our interventions are primarily focused on supporting the child’s key relationships (with foster carers and birth families) and network around the child. We use the attitude of PACE (from DDP) to engage with and relate to our young people, foster carers, birth parents and colleagues.
Social workers within the team are trained and supported in the delivery and understanding of the DDP model (Social Workers attend DDP level one and level two accredited training). We work together to provide the highest level of knowledge and analysis to ensure positive outcomes for Ealing’s looked after children.
We are looking for ambitious, professional, conscientious and experienced senior social workers.
You will need to be a team player – working with colleagues in a range of disciplines, sharing knowledge, and providing support and advice to deliver the best possible permanence outcomes for looked after children, primarily through long term foster care.
You will work with the managers in ensuring the provision of a high quality, cost effective and efficient social work service to children and their families and will also ensure the delivery of the service is within agreed strategic, operational and financial priorities and that it is in accordance with statutory responsibilities, policies and procedures.
The role
As a Senior Social Worker in the Permanence and Recruitment Team, you will play a key role in helping professionals finalise the child’s care plan. You would initiate Permanency Planning Meetings and include all professionals involved with the child to gather information about the child and agree a permanency plan of a long term match with either the foster carer that the child currently resides with or to find a new long term foster family, and timescales around this. In your role, you will be responsible for completing a profile of the child and also work with other professionals in advising about any preparation work to be undertaken with the child. At the point of decisions being made about permanent foster care, you will be the lead in searching for approved permanent foster carers nationally and identifying possible links to consider alongside the child’s social worker. You will be creative and skilled at preparing a plan of introductions and facilitate smooth transitions for children to their permanent foster homes. You will be expected to undertake together or apart sibling assessments for sibling groups on your caseload and prepare detailed reports outlining the individual needs of the children and their sibling relationship, with recommendations in relation them being together or separation.
As part of your role, you will need to be skilled at engaging and working together with prospective long term foster carers, supervising social workers and the child’s social workers in completing comprehensive matching reports and support plans, and be able to present long term matches at the Fostering Panel for children up to the age of 14. Life Appreciation Days will have to be organised for the permanent foster carers so they are supported to understand the child’s journey into care and after and how their experiences may manifest in the future. You will liaise with all professionals involved with the children in the past as well as present to obtain all relevant information and include them in the Life Appreciation Day wherever appropriate. For children who are over 14 years of age, you will be responsible for liaising with the IRO and agreeing the match at the child’s CLA review.
You will also be involved in Fostering Recruitment. We need foster carers to help care for our children and this is a key area of focus for the department. Key responsibilities would include holding monthly information sessions for members of the community interested in fostering, visiting members of the community and assessing their suitability to engage in fostering assessments. You would be expected to help facilitate Skills to Foster training which is offered to prospective foster carers. You will be allocated fostering assessments which will need to be completed and presented at Fostering Panel for approval of foster carers. This part of the role also comprises of participation in marketing events (events may take place out of hours or on weekends) such as roadshows, coffee mornings, carnivals etc. to raise awareness in relation to fostering. You would be expected to engage with the local community in a welcoming, friendly and enthusiastic manner and customer care focus.
Ealing will give you the time and support you need to make a difference with regular reflective supervision being a key priority. We believe that our training, development and support are of a high standard and regularly commended by staff in Ealing.
Ealing Council is committed to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Ealing follows safer recruitment practices to protect children and vulnerable adults. The post holder will be subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
This post is subject to Ealing Council’s enhanced vetting process.
It is an exciting time to join us, here at Ealing Council. If you would like to make a positive difference to our residents and borough, then we are looking forward to hearing from you.
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Ealing Council is committed to creating good jobs and delivering on its connected communities’ agenda. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive.
We therefore welcome applications from all residents of the borough, who are currently underrepresented in Ealing’s workforce.
Please note all applications will be determined on merit.
