Child Protection Chair and Quality Assurance Officer

Starting Salary: £53,806 + £8,560 market enhanced payment, progressing to £59,497 per annum + £8,607 market enhanced payment

Hours: 37

Location: Team base is Farnham house in Stevenage, but candidate will be conferencing in person in one of our suites in Stevenage, Apsley or Hertford

Contract Type: Permanent

Directorate: Children's Services

About the team

The Child Protection Conferencing Team, within the Quality Assurance, Improvement and Practice Service provides independent, child‑centred oversight of safeguarding decision‑making, while also monitoring, evaluating, and improving the quality of multi‑agency child protection practice across Hertfordshire.

About the role

• Child protection conferences are the core function of this role, with additional responsibilities to uphold practice standards in relation to:
• analysis, risk assessment, risk management, and threshold decision making
• accountability and professional challenge
• quality and robustness of support and interventions to address risk outlined in child protection plans
• keeping children central to all decision making, planning and multi‑agency intervention, bringing to life children’s lived experiences and proportionate responses to keep them safe from harm

About you

• Chair complex multi‑agency Child Protection Conferences for children who are considered at risk of significant harm in line with the core principles of Hertfordshire’s family safeguarding programme, maintaining an independent perspective to ensure that plans are collaborative, supportive and effective in engaging change for children and their families.
• Facilitate conferences to an excellent quality, role‑model partnership with families and keeping children, their views and lived experiences at the centre of all decision making and planning.
• Undertake robust and timely scrutiny of your allocated child protection plans to ensure the support and protection provided by the multi‑agency network is progressing in line with the children and family’s needs and/or any delay or issues increasing risk to the children are escalated.
• Undertake a quality assurance role in relation to children in need of protection or in care, by actively monitoring practice standards, systems and processes and identifying any practice deficits to improve service delivery for children, young people and their families.
• Contribute to the support and robust challenge, including the challenge to multi‑agency partners in the formulation, monitoring and review of plans for children at risk. Advising on improvements to ensure that they are in line with the required standard.
• The post‑holder should be able to inspire respect for decision making across professional boundaries.
• Develop, enhance and maintain excellent working relationships with key/core statutory partners, locality specific service providers, stakeholders, multi‑agencies (e.g. Health, Police, Education) and the wider community, to develop joint planning and delivery mechanisms thus ensuring that positive outcomes are secured for young people and corporate parenting is fully understood.
• Lead and participate in case audits on the quality of childcare work, analysing and challenging practice, identifying gaps and developing strategies for addressing shortfalls.
• Maintain an allocated case load of children at risk, rigorously monitoring and tracking individual plans and permanency plans, and implement the conflict resolution procedure where necessary.
• Robustly raise issues in accordance with the conflict resolution protocols, national standards, legislation, county and directorate policies.

Essential

• Professional SW Qualification and SW England registration
• Detailed knowledge of the Children Act, Working Together, Care Planning Regulations and IRO Guidance and other relevant legislation, guidance and research findings
• Substantial frontline child protection practice experience within children’s social care (enquiries, assessments, reviews, conferences, decision‑making and supervision)
• Experience of chairing multi‑disciplinary meetings
• Promote effective working relationships with teams, service areas and partner agencies, and able to effectively manage the interaction of people with different perspectives
• Know how to work skilfully and confidently with families and parents in child protection, situating them as partners where safe to do so, and including those who have demonstrated resistant, hostile and/or deceptive behaviour
• Excellent analytical and risk assessment skills
• Knowledge of risk management processes and the ability to assess and manage risk professionally and organisationally
• Effective organisation and time management skills, in order to meet service objectives and deadlines
• Ability to use IT systems effectively
• Experience in working in safeguarding children and ability to recognise, analyse and manage risk
• Experience in working with children, families and colleagues from partner agencies
• Ability to demonstrate awareness and understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion and how this applies to this role
• Driving licence and access to a vehicle

Desirable

• Relevant post qualifying studies
• Evidenced continued professional development relevant to the role

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. Sponsorship is not available for this role.

Additional information

Disability Confident: We are a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

Safeguarding: This role requires a Disclosure.