Service Manager - Placements - Croydon

Croydon Children's Social Care have been going through transformation. One of the areas we have made great strides forward in is the service which finds homes for our Children Looked After and Care Experienced Young Adults. We believe that nobody's children live in placements. Our children live in homes where they are loved and cared for. We want exactly the same for our CLA and CEYA. So our service is called Homefinding.

Over the last year or so we have pulled together a team with sufficient management capacity and staff resource to be able to give the time and attention to finding homes the attention it deserves. We now want to complete the process by creating a fully permanently staff service. We are seeking a qualified and experienced Service Manager to join our placements service. The successful candidate will play a critical role in ensuring children receive the best support to help them achieve their aspirations and have an active voice in everything that we do.

You will lead, motivate, manage, supervise and develop practice and performance of a team of 2 Team Managers to foster a culture of continuous learning and development. The successful candidate should have experience in a similar role. You will be an experienced Registered Social Work Manager. You will have resilience and ability to work in a pressurised environment. You will have a passion for ensuring that children are cared for and that your staff team are supported to feel successful.

• Qualified Social Worker, registered with Social Work England.
• Service Manager experienced in managing services for children.
• Experienced in making assessments, implementing plans and delivering interventions for children in the relevant service area of the child's journey.
• Experienced in leading and managing performance of team managers, ensuring the cases are allocated effectively in terms of skills and experience suited to the complexity of the case.
• A clear commitment to services working in partnership with families and creating positive change in young people's lives.
• Demonstrable experience of leading and managing statutory interventions that are relevant to this service area and role (including high risk and high complexity work), and that deliver high quality performance and good outcomes for children and young people.
• Able to lead, think, plan and manage strategically and systemically, as well as operationally.
• Able to use performance information to drive improvement for children and young people.
• Able to produce high quality, analytical and evidence-based reports.
• Able to manage, plan and control delegated budgets.
• Experience of developing high quality services within a statutory setting, with a particular focus on contextualised safeguarding.
• Experience of developing a highly motivated, high achieving and stable workforce with a positive, "can-do", customer-centred culture.
• Able to work outside of normal office hours when required and to be part of the senior manager out-of-hours rota.

Our teams consist of experienced Social Workers and Team Managers at various levels and workers who are alternatively qualified. Join a highly diverse workforce. The team arrange meetings weekly to ensure all colleagues have the support required to fulfil their duties, they will use this time to problem solve complex cases. The ethos at Croydon is very much about working together to make positive change. You will join an established management team who can help you settle in and offer their expertise.

You will be valued for your skills and expertise, supported by the team of experienced professionals, as well as the management at Croydon Council, one of the largest employers in the borough. We also offer:

• Highly competitive compensation package
• Accredited Systemic Practice training
• A range of CPD opportunities
• 29-31 days (grade equivalent) annual leave in addition to Bank Holidays and option to purchase more
• A pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 20%
• Continuing Professional Development - genuine opportunities to grow, develop and specialise in your career
• Management development programmes
• Investment into your wellbeing
• Access to Employee Discount scheme with a range of programmes (Cycle Benefit Scheme, GymFlex, Retail Discounts and more)
• We promote flexible & hybrid working arrangements where possible to support a healthy work-life balance

Full time 36 Hours

Closing date 20 April :59pm

Croydon Council is an inclusive employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. Subject to business needs, we will be pleased to consider applications from candidates seeking flexible working arrangements and support hybrid working, whereby staff attend the workplace for part of their working week and work from home, or elsewhere, remotely for the rest of the time. As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the advertised role. Croydon council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. The Successful candidate will be subject to a DBS check.