Senior Social Worker - Adult Early Help

An exciting, fixed term opportunity has arisen to join the front door team for Prevention and Early Intervention as a Senior Social Worker in our Adult Early Help team. The service helps adults with support needs and their unpaid carers living in the community from across Cambridgeshire. With a focus on strength based, person centred conversations, the team connects people to community resources, volunteers, and charities, making good use of equipment and technology to prevent, reduce and delay the need for formal care.

The work of the team is fast paced and the role of the Senior Social Worker is to provide expertise on legislation and to ensure a balanced approach is taken to positive risk taking and safeguarding. You will line manage and support the development of the wider team using your experience to support alternatively qualified staff in Adult Support Coordinator Roles. You will work alongside the other Senior Social Worker in the team to support the ongoing development of our team through case audits, reflective work, identifying and supporting the development of training needs.

As part of the wider Prevention and Early Intervention offer, we work closely with colleagues from within the service to deliver the best outcomes for service users. Similarly, as the front door team, we work closely with colleagues from many external teams sharing our knowledge and expertise to achieve a wider focus on prevention and early intervention.

This is a diverse and varied role working mostly remotely using telephone and video calls to support service users with all areas of their wellbeing. You will support the effective triaging of new referrals, allocations of work to ensure a varied and balanced workload that both meets the experience of the team members but also provides them opportunities to stretch and grow.

You will work to ensure an effective balance of strength based practice and risk management is seen in case work and recording while also ensuring the effective throughput of work to allow the team and service to function at the fast pace it is required to achieve. The team uses daily huddles that provide opportunities for case discussion, knowledge and experience sharing, reflective practice and effective challenges. This will provide you with opportunities to work with the wider team and Prevention and Early Intervention service.

Initiative is encouraged, as a team we recognise the need to work in different ways to adapt to changes in service demand or trends in need. There will be opportunities to support the training and development of the team as well as chances to further your own development and learning.

As a Senior Social Worker, you will have line management responsibilities for both Social Workers and Adult Support Coordinators. You will also take a lead on quality assuring all work and will have budgetary responsibilities. Another key part of the role is to embed new processes and learning within the team and wider service to ensure that we are responsive to needs and feedback. We are proud of the learning environment that we offer and our Senior Social Workers are critical in bringing spaces for reflection, advice and guidance to the team.

You must be a Qualified Social Worker with current Social Work England Registration with post qualifying experience within Social Care. You will need a good working knowledge of the Care Act 2014 and Mental Capacity Act 2005. Experience of multi-disciplinary working to enable best outcomes for individuals is key.

It is imperative that you have strong communication skills, a confident telephone manner and can work on your own initiative. Good planning and organisation skills will be key, and you should be used to working under pressure to meet deadlines, allowing flexibility and resilience. Experience of supporting the development of others is essential and of line managing staff desirable. You will have the ability to lead with confidence and of sharing your knowledge to mentor and coach others.

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage:

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family.
• 6 days of protected time each year to support in maintaining your Continuous Professional Development.
• A relocation package of up to £8,000 (eligibility applies).
• A pay progression scheme to enable you to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills.
• Scalable retention payments of up to £8,852 over a 3 year period, starting after your first full year of employment, in specific teams.
• A Refer a Friend Scheme where if you refer another Social Worker to us who is subsequently employed by us as a result of that introduction, we will pay you an introduction fee of £350.
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth.

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes. Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do. We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities.

If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager to discuss any adjustment needs.