Senior Practitioner - Family Safeguarding (Internal Applicants Only)

PLEASE NOTE THIS POST IS ONLY OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: Bassett Street, Wigston, LE18 4PE

Salary: £46,110 - £50,079 (inclusive of market premia at £2,250) per annum (pro rata for part-time) (Pay award pending)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 17th May 2026

Interview Date(s): TBC

Come and join us! We have a vacancy for a Senior Practitioner in Wigston family safeguarding based at Bassett Street. If successful, you will support the Team Managers in ensuring that high-quality services are provided for local children and their families. The right support at the right time, working with the whole family network to promote positive attachments in a safe and stable family environment. Ensuring timely expert safeguarding and legal interventions where this is proportionate.

About the Role

Family Safeguarding is the specialist service for children and young people at risk or experiencing significant harm and therefore in need of safeguarding within Leicestershire. Building on the robust practice already in place, learning from the national reviews, positive OFSTED and judicial feedback, this service is evolving into a more specialist child protection and court work service. Family Safeguarding is being structured to allow the workforce to refine and develop their safeguarding skills, concentrating team expertise to enable us to support families to achieve change where possible, and to skilfully use PLO pre-proceedings and court proceedings to achieve best outcomes for children. The enhanced specialisation of the service will facilitate improved PLO work, reducing delay for our most vulnerable children and young people.

Deploying our skilled and experienced workforce of team managers, agency and permanent senior practitioners and social workers, support and assessment workers and support workers, we will build on their high levels of skills and experience to focus on delivering excellent safeguarding and court facing services. You will support the team manager with running POD meetings and other actions as they arise.

Family Safeguarding will offer support to children and families who are experiencing very high levels of need and risk, offering tailored and proportionate support to help children to have stable attachments and to live in safe and stable environments.

The central themes of relationship-based and trauma-informed practice are embodied in the vision for Family Safeguarding, and as a learning organisation, we will continue to collect and reflect on the evidence we have for what works well, and what could be even better, continually improving our practice with and for the most vulnerable in our community.

Building on our strong Signs of Safety framework we will enhance our expertise in Family Safeguarding through an improved training offer, enhanced supervision covering reflective case, personal and group supervision, supporting practitioners to enhance their relationship-based interventions, partnership working, evidencing and analysing the complex situations they face. Managers will be supported to offer increased evidence-based analysis, as well as collegiate and supervisory challenge capabilities.

Leicestershire’s diverse community is served by an equally diverse workforce and culturally competent practice is a key strand of Leicestershire’s ability to achieve positive professional relationships that enable our clientele to achieve the positive changes needed to ensure best outcomes for children.

An enhanced with barred list DBS check is required for this post.

About You

We want creative, experienced and supportive workers who will provide intensive and focused support to families in their homes. Developing effective relationships and using strengths-based and trauma-informed approaches will help to motivate and encourage behaviour change, leading to positive differences in children’s lives.

To apply for this post, you must have:

• Degree in Social Work approved by the Social Work England (SWE) or equivalent social work qualification i.e. Certificate of Qualification in Social Work or Diploma in Social Work and must also be registered with Social Work England.
• Evidence of continuing professional development and a Practice Educator award, or commitment to complete training within 12 months of appointment.
• Extensive and recent post-qualification experience of working with children and families in a statutory setting including Safeguarding, Court and Pre-proceeding work.
• Proven experience of coordinating multi-agency work to support children using formal outcome focused plans.
• Experience of undertaking Section 47 enquiries.
• Experience of applying evidence-based approach to practice such as Signs of Safety approach.
• Experience of leading child protection enquiries and managing risk.
• Experience of using performance indicators to monitor and improve performance.
• Able to analyse information to reach sound decisions, often under pressure, and take responsibility for their outcome and regular reporting to the Team manager.
• Experience of supervising social work students.
• In depth knowledge and ability to apply relevant policies appropriate legislation government guidance and best practice in all aspects of social work including LSCB procedures.
• Advanced knowledge of the statutory duties of the Local Authority including child protection and looked after children processes including care proceedings.
• Extensive knowledge of a range of relevant theories, research, serious case review findings and models of social work interventions and how these can be integrated into service delivery to enhance outcomes for children.
• Significant knowledge of the factors and influences which can impact on children achieving positive outcomes including child development, attachment and neglect, and parental factors such as substance misuse domestic abuse and mental health.
• Awareness of the cultural, racial, linguistic and religious background of children, young people and families and how to build effective responses into service delivery.

All applicants must have a full valid driving licence.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and to delivering accessible and inclusive services which meet the needs of all of our residents. You will be asked to demonstrate your understanding of these commitments as part of the selection process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability. We are a Disability Confident Employer.

Interested in Flexible Working? We are open to discussions about flexible working, which may include part time working, job sharing, term-time working, flexible start and finish times, and hybrid working, depending on the requirements of the role and the service.

How to Apply

At Leicestershire County Council we’re looking for top talent from all walks of life. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, and whatever your background - we care about what you bring to our organisation, not just what’s on your CV. That’s why we’ve designed a recruitment process that’s fair, accessible, and focused on potential. And with benefits that support people at every age and stage of life, we make sure you can thrive - both personally and professionally.

If you share our passion to make a difference for the people of Leicestershire, we’d love to hear from you. Click the apply button to submit your application, ensuring that you upload a supporting statement (Maximum of 1000 words) that explains how you meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above. Without this information, we won’t be able to assess your suitability for the role, and your application will be rejected.

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.