Designate Safeguarding Nurse (Adults and Children)

The post holder will act as a source of expertise for all issues relating to health and social care services for vulnerable children and adults across the Bailiwick of Guernsey and Alderney. They will take the strategic and clinical lead in the safeguarding of vulnerable children and adults regarding all elements of health service contribution and ensure the promotion of their welfare. This post will work in conjunction with identified medical safeguarding leads including the Designated Doctor for Child Safeguarding.

The Designated Nurse will provide strategic, professional specialist advice to the Bailiwick and support to the Islands Safeguarding Children and Adults Partnership (ISCAP) and HSC Committee.

It will involve liaising with partner organisations, the Safeguarding Children and Adult Partnership and other relevant statutory and voluntary sector organisations. The scope of the post will include leading the health contribution to the development of effective inter‑disciplinary and inter‑agency relationships to improve the outcomes for children in need, children in care and vulnerable adults. The post holder will on occasions have direct involvement with children and families providing clinical leadership by example, as well as supporting others to deliver high quality evidence‑based care. The post‑holder will be expected to advise on improvements in service delivery and practice.

• To exercise a high degree of professional autonomy and make critical judgments.
• To provide clinical leadership of complex safeguarding cases, leading by example throughout the organisation and across other health and social care providers.
• To make decisions where precedents may not exist in relation to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, and to advise and support colleagues where standard protocols do not apply.
• To draw on advanced professional knowledge and exercise professional skills of the highest order.
• Provide expert clinical advice in respect of complex individual cases and be a source of expert knowledge on all aspects of practice in relation to vulnerable children, children in need, children in need of protection and vulnerable adults.
• Where appropriate, to develop a protocol for the contribution of health service staff to the assessment of children in need, children in need of protection, children in care and vulnerable adults and ensure that, where there are grounds for concern that they are suffering significant harm, these are consistent with protocols.
• To work with partner organisations to ensure a robust framework of policy and procedure for protecting children and adults that reflect legislation, statutory guidance and professional standards.
• To ensure that strategy and plans reflect the learning from Rapid Reviews and Serious Case Reviews and other relevant learning from safeguarding incidents.
• To facilitate a partnership approach to safeguarding across the system.
• To provide mentoring, supervision and role modelling where appropriate.
• To ensure that appropriate mechanisms are in place which will promote and sustain effective working relationships between staff in the primary care team and partner services and agencies in the development of child protection practice.
• To work closely with the Quality Manager to enable a joined‑up response to quality and safeguarding and design and deliver appropriate assurance and governance systems across HSC to safeguard children and vulnerable adults.
• To work with partners to ensure independent contractors are compliant with their statutory responsibilities including training and are also aware of local issues and initiatives.
• To play a key role in developing arrangements for consultation, supervision, development and training of all staff who are involved in providing services to children, families and vulnerable adults.
• To support the work of the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) and ensure feedback to relevant professionals.
• To work with those working to prevent abuse including domestic abuse, substance misuse, parental mental health, contextual safeguarding.
• To notify the Director of Operations regarding serious incidents and high risk cases and other alerts/investigations.
• To promote the inter‑agency planning process for children and vulnerable adults in need of protection.
• To consider ways in which national and local policy and practice can be developed to safeguard and enhance the quality of vulnerable adults lives and improve outcomes.
• To work with the Named Nurse/Midwife to develop their roles in the supervision, development and training of all staff working with vulnerable children, families and vulnerable adults.
• To participate fully in the work of the Safeguarding Partnership to ensure the direct linkage of strategy development, training and service delivery.
• To report progress against strategies through personal representation at senior management forums and by written reports to appropriate boards and groups of staff.
• To ensure that best practice is developed and delivered at organisational and departmental levels.
• To challenge ways of working and persuade, motivate and influence other senior managers to realign their practice where necessary.
• To lead, support and contribute to formal negotiations with senior staff from external stakeholders, providing a high level of negotiating expertise.
• To provide expert advice in relation to the Mental Health and Capacity Laws in collaboration with the HSC leads.

Registered Nurse or midwife. Masters degree in a relevant field.

Experienced and highly skilled specialist practitioner, with a minimum of 3 years post qualifying experience and recent experience in a senior safeguarding role. Significant experience within child protection and adult safeguarding and the undertaking of child protection and/or adult safeguarding investigations. Previous experience of chairing meetings and a high standard of communication skills, both written and verbal with the ability to deal with complex and challenging situations in a calm and diplomatic manner. Experience in designing and delivering safeguarding training. Experience of writing reports to a high standard following reviews of individual cases.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration.