At Swindon Borough Council, we want our town to be the best it can be. Our ambitious vision in the new Swindon Plan is supported by realistic transformation programmes, with the people of Swindon at their heart. Because that’s who we’re doing it for – the communities and businesses that make our town great. As part of the Council, you’ll support a friendly local authority making decisions with real impact. It’s all for better public services. Better processes. And a better quality of life, for everyone. Join us, and Swindon will be better with you.
Here in Swindon we have a clear vision and plans to reduce the need for Children to come into our care with our new adolescent offer and edge of care work and we are continually working as a partnership to ensure or children are safe.
We’re making a real difference to the lives of the children and families we work with in Swindon.
Join us and be part of that difference.
About Us
We have now implemented the Family Safeguarding Model in 2022, a new multi-disciplinary approach that supports a whole-system change to child protection for children up to adolescence, focusing on supporting the needs of children and adults so that children can safely remain within their families. This is a great opportunity to join us now and be part of this pioneering work as we continue to learn from multi agency family work and support more families to look after their children in their families and wider communities.
In addition, we have an established and growing our ASYE programme, linked to our Social Care & Leadership Academy, offering mentoring support, fostering a culture of learning and challenge, manageable caseloads and good quality supervision, as we commit and invest in growing our own talent, as well as our experienced social workers.
About the role
We are seeking Quality Assurance Reviewing Officers to join our growing team. This dynamic role, reporting to the service manager you will be committed to providing a quality assurance and reviewing service across differing levels of need, to drive strengths-based practice and culture.
Quality Assurance Reviewing Officers (QARO’s) ensure that statutory and regulatory safeguarding requirements are met for independent reviewing for children in care, child protection and fostering reviewing functions and go beyond that to focus on the delivery and improvement of services for children, young people and their families through the provision of high-quality independent oversight of practice, and effective partnership working with all those involved with the child.
The service will provide independent, professional support and challenge and be accountable for service improvement, ensuring quality assurance of practice across the whole service. The service will champion a child’s right to family life.
Swindon operates the family safeguarding model and workers are excited by this approach; we can see the difference it is making to children, young people and their families. When children do need to be looked after, the QARO ensures the Local Authority are providing the best care possible.
Ofsted comments from latest monitoring visit: -
“The corporate partnership is becoming more effective in creating greater strategic joint working across the council. This is particularly striking in the partnership working between children services and housing. Equally, the children’s commissioning team is beginning to understand gaps in service provision and are developing services to meet these needs. This is leading to a greater accommodation choice for young people.
While much progress has been made, there is still much to achieve. The primary role of a QARO is to ensure that children are central to the assessment of their needs and any plans to support them. They will ensure that the voice of the child or young person is heard, that children are a central focus in decision making and that their rights and responsibilities are being championed.
QAROs will organise and facilitate a range of meetings to meet statutory obligations under the Children Act 1989 and Working Together 2023, focusing on building relationships; ensuring effective participation and taking a strengths-based approach.
This fast-paced role is full of exciting and rewarding opportunities to make a real difference. We focus on delivering impactful services with bold ambitions to achieve excellence. If you are passionate about putting children and young people at the heart of everything you do, and you have the ambition to help shape their future, we would love to hear from you.
About You
Your aspirations should be limitless and you will be as determined and passionate about Children’s Services as we are. As a local authority, we continuously drive forward improvements in our services. We want our Social Workers to be part of our transformation, contribute to improving the safeguarding of our children, and we will make sure you have the full support network and training to do it.
Our teams are ambitious and proactive and we are looking for people who will share that ambition and be a part of our journey.
Candidates must be fluent in the English language (as a requirement of Part 7 of the Immigration Act – for the effective performance of a customer-facing role).
Our commitment to your development
We are dedicated to ensuring that you can progress your continued professional development and access training and learning opportunities linked to the BASW competencies for career progression.
We have an established Social Work & Leadership Academy. The Academy aims to celebrate the best in professional practice in Social Work and Social Care Leadership. The Academy represents an opportunity for us to demonstrate how we support, develop and value the professional disciplines in Social Work and Social Care through a targeted framework of career development and learning opportunities.
* Relocation allowance of up to £8,000 (eligibility criteria applies)
* Free car parking at our central Swindon campus and easy commuter links to many locations
As an employee, you will receive a diverse and exciting environment in which to work, encouraging creativity and innovation whilst recognising the need to support ongoing personal development and a flexible work life balance.
For Swindon to thrive in the future, we need to lay the foundations now. It’s why our regeneration and transformation programmes are already underway. So, you’ll be joining us at an exciting time on our journey. We’ll look to you to share your knowledge, influence decisions and drive real, positive change. With your contributions, we’ll achieve our vision of a prosperous, re-vitalised Swindon together. And you’ll be proud to say it was made better with you.
To be eligible for this role, you must be a qualified Social Worker with Social Work England registration.
Read the role profile and select the Apply button where you will be redirected to the Swindon Borough Council website to complete our online application process. Clicking the ‘Apply’ button on this job website is not an application, you must register on the Swindon Borough Council website in order to be considered for the role.
For an informal confidential discussion about this opportunity, please contact Sheila Meakin, email SMeakin1@swindon.gov.uk or phone 07824 632075.
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