Middlesbrough Children’s Services are on an exciting and fast paced improvement journey and at the heart of everything we do is making sure that ‘Middlesbrough Children Matter’. We have been told in every visit by Ofsted that we are improving services to children in the Town and we are very proud of our achievements.
Middlesbrough Council’s Safeguarding and Care Planning Service is driven by a real passion and focus on helping our children and young people be safe, supported and be the best they can be. You will be the strategic lead for the team working closely with your management team to ensure that progress is made towards continued improvements for the service as a whole.
This role is perfect if you are ready to progress into a senior management role and grow your career further, making a real difference to the lives of our children. Your strong background in social work, coupled with your passion and drive to improve performance alongside your extensive knowledge and expertise, you will develop and grow talent in social work in a role with real purpose. Or perhaps you are already in a senior management role and would relish joining an established, supportive team, focussed on improvement and high-quality services, offering you new challenges and rewards.
You will mentor and support the Service manager alongside a team of Social Worker Managers to ensure that children are at the heart of everything we do and showing the passion that Middlesbrough Children Matter. You will provide strategic leadership to the team, develop policy and contribute to the strategic planning of the service. At the centre of this role is to develop consistently good quality social work practice There are excellent training and development opportunities for all staff including the established Centre for Practice Excellence, which you will both be able to access and shape in your role as Head of Service.
A key part of the Senior Leadership team, you will receive lots of peer support from established Heads of Service, alongside accessible Directors to support and guide you in this new step. You must be a qualified Social Worker with Social Work England registration, have a strong background of social work with extensive experience of working with children, families, and multi-agencies with in-depth knowledge of legislation and child protection.
What you will be doing:
Lead the department in areas of Safeguarding, ensuring high quality intervention is provided where necessary.
Challenge performance using data and quality assurance audits.
Ensure the needs of children and families are centric and met through timely interventions.
Manage budgets applicable to the service to ensure resources are utilised effectively.
Building and sustaining relationships with other service areas and multi-agencies.
Chairing key project boards and strategy meetings where appropriate.
You will have:
Professional Social Work qualification.
Post qualification training in a relevant field.
Passion and focus on improving the lives of our children
Excellent management experience, ideally within a Children’s Services Setting.
Integrity in your approach, with experience of working with large revenues and capital budgets.
A collaborative approach, working closely with multi-agencies, directors, and team managers to ensure the best outcomes for our children and families.
Flexibility to work in various locations.
In return, we can offer you a hybrid working arrangement, meaning you can spend time working at home if that’s what you want to do. We have family friendly policies, flexible hours, generous annual leave, a salary sacrifice electric car scheme, various employee discounts and benefits, health and wellbeing resources, plus that all important great pension.
If you have any questions or want a chat about the excellent work we do, our service, delivery and direction, please contact Rachel Farnham, Director of Children’s Care on Rachel_Farnham@middlesbrough.gov.uk or 01642 201998.
The above post is subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
Closing date: Friday 14th October by 12 midnight.
Job Description and Person Specification