Learning & Improvement Manager

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Fixed Location Worker

Salary: £47,694- £52,155 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: 12 month fixed contract/secondment

Closing Date: 7th July 2025

Interview Date(s): 28th July 2025

About the Role

We have an exciting opportunity to join our Practice Excellence Team as a Learning and Improvement Manager. This role is a key part of our offer to support and develop the practice of colleagues working within Children's Social Care. You will be working within a team including the Principal Social Worker, Assistant Service Manager and Advanced Practitioners.

Some of the key activities as part of your role:

• Providing 1:1 support to managers across teams in children's social care - this could include reflective discussions, helping to develop safety plans, supporting on challenging visits or supporting in chairing network meetings.
• Taking the lead in recruitment activity across the department, including weekly meetings to coordinate HR and CFS Recruitment to ensure social work roles and jobs are advertised, and support in coordinating interview panels.
• Leading on new and innovative ways to promote social work roles and vacancies.
• Working with universities and partner agencies to promote social work roles.
• Conducting Rapid Review and Learning Reviews where a serious incident or the death of a child has occurred.
• Having good report writing skills, a good understanding of policy and procedure, and an ability to analyse information to formulate learning for services.
• Leading on and disseminating learning from local and national learning reviews, including virtual practice forums and learning sets to develop and improve practice across the service.
• Supporting newly qualified social workers via the ASYE program and international social workers.
• Participating in other key activities such as annual conferences, virtual practice forum events, recruitment activity and quality assurance activity.

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

About You

To apply for this post, you must:

• Be a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England.
• Have proven experience in children's social work, with substantial breadth of practice and depth of experience across a range of areas in children's social work including child protection, complex care or risk management.
• Demonstrate skilled application of knowledge and understanding of the Signs of Safety methodology and Trauma Informed practice approach.
• Provide evidence of supervising staff including coaching/mentoring and supporting workers to develop their practice and confidence.
• Have experience of challenging practice to support improvement.
• Possess extensive knowledge of key areas of social work practice including safeguarding children and managing risk.
• Ability to proactively develop strong and productive relationships with a wide range of colleagues and external partners.

As an organisation, we are committed to a strong and skilled workforce providing high quality services to the children and families of Leicestershire following our relationship-based Signs of Safety practice approach.

About Us

At Leicestershire County Council, we are committed to doing our very best for vulnerable children and families; working to make a positive impact on their lives so they can achieve their potential and flourish. We are proud of our Achieving Excellence Plan which sets out our key values, behaviours and ambitions.

We have embedded the Signs of Safety approach throughout our services and this approach mirrors our values of Aspiration, Being Curious and Collaboration. We are focused on working with families and the networks of family, friends and professionals around children, to work in collaboration to achieve shared goals.

As Children and Family department, we are committed to our vision of becoming a trauma informed responsive department where we believe we are stronger together. Our culture is one of partnership where we look for solutions and recognise the potential impact of trauma on the children and families we work with and on our staff.

We will strive to create a safe, compassionate, healing environment demonstrated through relationships based on trust, respect, hope and empathy. We will achieve this through a spirit of curiosity, by nurturing connections through relationships, making a deliberate effort to know and understand people, and by providing hope for growth and recovery.

We are committed to supporting and empowering our staff to be the best workers that they can be. We will give you the support and resources that you need to work in collaboration with children and families.

We are focused on being an inclusive department where a culture to celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion is embedded and discrimination challenged at every level together as a department and as Council. We warmly welcome applicants from black, minority, ethnic (BME) communities, disabled people and lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities, as they are currently under represented within our workforce.

We want all our staff to be inspired to go the extra mile. We are doing our best to create the sort of culture where practice excellence can flourish. We want to learn from what works, as much, if not more, than from when things go badly - we are ambitious to create a true learning organisation.

Every year we run three annual conferences for staff to come together and reflect and learn. Every month each team sets aside time for team learning. You will receive consistent, regular and reflective supervision and group supervision support.

Twice a year our senior leaders take a week out spending time with social workers observing practice and talking to young people and parents and carers about their experience of services. All Social Work England registered workers have three extra Continuous Professional Development days over the year.

Our training offer to social workers is refreshed each year and is highly valued by our staff. We provide courses and training to support workforce career progression including Practice Educator Awards, Aspiring Managers Program, and Social Work Apprenticeship Program.

We have a team dedicated to supporting practice excellence who work alongside practitioners offering monthly training and learning, coaching and mentoring to build practitioner confidence, 1:1 or group reflective case discussions, and other support to staff and teams that can be requested.

Our Practice Development Group is well established for practitioners to collaborate on practice development. We have a Critical Incident Response service for staff which provides independent therapeutic support within 48 hours if you experience a significant traumatic experience within work.

We have a well-respected Wellbeing Service who provide specific support to staff when needed, but also offers events throughout the year.

We are currently operating a hybrid model of working, which includes office working and working from home. You will be provided with equipment including a laptop and smart phone to enable you to complete your role. We utilise smarter and flexible working policies to support staff to fulfil their roles within flexible circumstances.

Who we are looking for:

• You will be an energetic and enthusiastic worker who demonstrates enthusiasm and passion for practice.
• You will have experience of working in statutory children's services and an in-depth understanding of the interventions required to build safety and protect children from harm.
• You will be able to evidence your skills and knowledge of creative, innovative and relationship-based social work, working in collaboration with families and professionals.
• We want people who will help us to build a real culture of reflection and learning.
• You have retained a strong interest in research and the evidence base for practice and are confident about how this can be used in practice.
• Ideally you will already be confident in the application of the Signs of Safety methodology but certainly in the value of relationship-based social work and trauma informed practice.
• You will be able to demonstrate experience in developing and supporting colleagues in teams you have worked in, including students, newly qualified social workers, and other members of the team, to help to support and grow their practice.

For more about working in Leicestershire go to: Leicestershire County Council

For further information about our services areas: Services Areas

By the Way

A Few More Benefits of working In Leicestershire:

• Well regarded employee counselling services
• Free car parking
• Cycle to work scheme
• Paid SW registration
• Lease car scheme
• Option to purchase additional leave
• Discounts at high-street stores and supermarket shopping
• Special offers on leisure activities and gym memberships

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion. In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working? We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council.

If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact: Adam Tyler Email: Adam.Tyler@leics.gov.uk

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities.

We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.