Practitioner

As a Senior Practitioner in the Aspiring Futures team, you will have case holding responsibility for some of our exploited young people, completing Our Family assessments, direct work and intervention, child protection enquiries, and proactively working with the young person, their families, and wider partnership to disrupt exploitation and reduce harm. You will support the learning and development of practitioners within the team and deputise for the Team Manager and Assistant Team Manager, supporting tasks such as chairing meetings.

You will work alongside Aspiring Futures Practitioners, Street Teams, Youth Workers from the Adolescent Hub, and wider partners to support change and better outcomes for young people who are missing or exploited.

In addition to case holding, you will lead a project on mapping and understanding our Children in Care who go missing, including the perpetrators and partnership activities related to prevention, disruption, and response. This will support both strategic and operational efforts to strengthen support for our Children in Care.

You will work alongside young people to understand their needs and lived experiences related to exploitation and contextual safeguarding, considering wider vulnerabilities and protective factors. You will use context weighting to support needs assessment and risk reduction.

The team is co-located with Exploitation Police and the Youth Justice Service, and connected with partners such as Walsall Street Teams, The Beacon, Community Safety Partnership, Adult Social Care, and Education Inclusion Hub, promoting professional collaboration.

Participation and partnership with young people and their families are key, ensuring positive relationships, safety planning, and decision-making. The team adopts a relational and systemic approach, using motivational interviewing techniques to enable young people to feel heard and recognize their exploitation.

You will receive training in Systemic Family Practice, motivational interviewing, and trauma-informed practice. You will also support the development of practitioners, supervise students and ASYE social workers, and support team development and networking.

You will support and deputise for the Team Manager and Assistant Team Manager, providing advice, guidance, and chairing meetings such as daily missing and exploitation triage, MACE, and strategy meetings.

This role involves leading a project on mapping and understanding our Children in Care who go missing, strengthening strategic and operational support.

Walsall offers flexible working arrangements, generous holidays, a pension scheme, and opportunities for training and development. We are committed to diversity, equality, and creating an inclusive environment.

Living in Walsall offers a vibrant community with a rich industrial history and modern amenities. Learn more about living in Walsall.

Walsall Council is committed to Safer Recruitment and continuous improvement of recruitment processes to promote safeguarding.

We strive to provide manageable workloads, high managerial support, essential paperwork, enabling technologies, and training, including in Systemic Family Practice.

Our wellbeing initiatives include clinical supervision, a 9-day fortnight, hybrid and flexible working, and access to support services. We aim to retain social workers through career development and training opportunities.

The salary scale is G11 – £47,754 – £52,805, with additional retention payments after 2 years and increases at 4 and 6 years.

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