Adolescent Social Worker - Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge and Malling and Sevenoaks Districts

Do you want to work in an Outstanding Local Authority? Ofsted have recently awarded Kent with an Outstanding rating in recognition of the service we provide to our children. Ofsted were impressed with the Adolescent Service responses and support to children at risk of contextualised harm. We are now looking for social workers who can lend their skills and experience to help us build on our successes.

The Integrated Adolescent Service recognises that adolescents should be given a bespoke offer of support. We want professionals capable of bringing understanding and emotional intelligence to everything they do. The service promotes a practice philosophy which seeks to empower young people and their families, building on individual strengths, and helping them to develop strategies which support them to understand, manage and respond to the difficulties they face.

Our practitioners need to be resilient and persistent; be solution-focused; look past challenging behaviours; build positive relationships with adolescents and their carers, and to inspire young people to reach their potential.

We have opportunities for newly qualified and experienced Social Workers to join our AST team in our West 2 Kent. This team covers Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge districts. We want a practitioner who really cares about adolescents and who understands the impact of trauma, and how to respond to contextual harm.

Our generous recruitment, relocation and retention package is up to £13,000 in the first year. Successful applicants will receive a salary in the range of £34,421 - £38,304 dependent on skills and experience. You will get 29 days annual leave as standard, which increases to 30 days after 5 years continuous service. You are able to have flexi working arrangements and access a range of other staff awards and benefits.

About us: AST are a specialist social work team within an Integrated Adolescent Service which includes Youth Justice, Early Help, Inclusion & Attendance and Youth Services. AST offers intensive support to adolescents and their families to manage complex situations including extra familial harm and family conflict. AST focuses on young people who are at risk of being exploited. We work with young people facing a range of difficulties and challenges associated with the state of adolescence. We recognise that the more vulnerable the young person is because of the difficulties they experience, the greater the risk is that they may be exploited.

We offer co-working and co-location opportunities, and we have excellent relationships with key partners including Housing, Education, Health and the Police. Your role will involve providing intensive support, empowering young people and their families to develop effective long-term solutions to manage their family relationships and develop strategies to overcome the risks that adolescents face during this phase of their life.

Where it is not safe for young people to remain living at home we will continue to work with them and their families as well as their wider network to identify suitable safe alternatives. This role is a unique role which will provide you with experience in working across the areas of assessment, children in need, child protection, contextual harm, Court work and rehabilitation home. We believe that this will provide you with a wide spectrum of skills and we are committed to putting in place personalised development plans with our workers to enable them to feel valued and supported in their career development.

We have invested heavily in our core offer to staff, including evidenced based training in case formulation, contextual safeguarding and trauma-informed approaches. We also offer trauma-informed supervision to practitioners and managers to enhance how we support our workforce.

About you: With a degree in social work CQSW, DipSW or equivalent you must be Social Work England (SWE) registered and are likely to have some post-qualification experiences of working with children and families. Your experience may already cover systemic practice, and you will need to have or develop an in-depth understanding of legislative and policy frameworks, along with a willingness to learn and develop as a practitioner; being a team player is essential in any social work team.

You will have excellent opportunities for professional development by managing a varied caseload working with adolescents and their families. We will support you to consolidate your skills and knowledge, assisting you to develop areas of specialist practice, including trauma-informed practice and contextual safeguarding. You will share your previous knowledge and experience with the team in a number of ways, including assisted fieldwork, case audits and reviews. In addition, you will contribute to working groups and multi-agency forums to develop new initiatives.

This role is subject to holding a Full UK Driving Licence. The Council is committed to making reasonable adjustments so whilst this job requires the jobholder to drive your application will still be considered if you are unable to drive due to a disability. This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure application to the Disclosure and Barring service and registration as a qualified Social Worker with Social Work England. This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements.