Family Solutions Practice Supervisor, Braintree, Essex in Chelmsford

This is a 12-month Fixed Term Contract or Secondment Opportunity. Please note that visa sponsorship is not available for this role. Applicants must have a current, unrestricted right to work in the UK.

We are a dynamic, passionate, supportive and vibrant team who provide intensive support to families, ensuring that family empowerment is at the heart of our interventions. You will be joining a well-established and high performing team at a time when we are growing and evolving as a service. We would love to hear from interested and suitably experienced applicants who are committed to working with whole families to help them achieve their outcomes and improve their family lives.

The Role of Family Solutions Practice Supervisor

The postholder will work closely with the Team Manager to enable the Family Workers to continue to deliver positive outcomes for children, young people and the families we support, as well as maintaining the effective working relationships that we have developed with partners. The role will involve you supervising staff from a range of professional backgrounds, supporting them to work creatively and innovatively. It also requires you to manage new referrals via a duty system, making decisions about required actions and allocating work.

What you will need

• Professionally qualified in social work and registered with Social Work England.
• Ideally you will hold a practice educator qualification or be willing to work towards achieving one and have some supervisory experience.
• At least three years post qualified with evidence of post qualification development.
• Demonstrable skills in staff supervision and experience of developing good practice with staff through approaches such as coaching, joint working/observations, and reflective discussions.
• Experience of dealing with incoming referrals effectively, risk assessing and allocating tasks.
• Ability to problem solve in crisis.
• Experience of cases allocation, and safety planning.
• Ability to work effectively in partnership with a wide range of professionals, building relationships to promote safety of children and resolve differences.
• Commitment to practice improvement and able to utilise the principles of effective practice to improve outcomes for children and young people with a range of complex needs.
• Good presentation skills and be able to use these to represent the team (in the absence of the Team Manager) at locality strategic planning meetings.
• Working knowledge of children’s service legislation and guidance; including understanding of current changes to early help / family help / Families First Partnership Programme.

The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wider operational area including travelling around the county of Essex and beyond, transporting service users and their belongings and to be able to do so in an emergency. Driving licence and car or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means is essential.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.