Job Details:
Salary range: £54,684 - £60,795 per annum
Work location: 190 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 1DX
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: Permanent
Vetting requirements: Enhanced DBS Check
Closing date: 19 April 2025
Interview date: Week Commencing 5 May 2025
About Us:
THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF INDEPENDENT LIVES
Adult Social Care in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, where our passionate, caring and committed professionals do brilliant work every day.
Mrs D was frail and unwell. Her son was her main carer, but he wasn’t coping. We stepped in to help, but they were hostile to outside agencies. They’d always lived together and were terrified they’d be split up. Our social worker did a great job persuading Mrs D to get hospital treatment and a temporary stay in a care home. In an epic effort throughout COVID, she gained the son’s trust and sorted all the repairs, carers and nurses needed so that Mrs D could come home to live with her son. We also got Mr D regular respite and a personal budget awarded in recognition of him as her carer. After all, there’s nothing more important than living the life you want.
The Role:
As a Senior Social Worker with our Mental Health Service you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. Offering your professional and managerial expertise as you supervise your colleagues, you’ll promote the highest professional standards and good practice as you take the lead on your team’s social work and local authority agendas. Playing a key role in the multi-disciplinary meetings that ensure we deliver all our statutory duties, you’ll help to oversee our screening, triage and duty service, and undertake standard audits of social work practice within your team.
Identifying and managing any adult safeguarding or child protection issues that arise, we’ll expect you to undertake a range of risk assessment and risk management duties. Attending professional practice forums will be another important part of your work, as will taking part in reflective practice sessions and promoting the work of our service. You’ll also keep up to date with research in relation to mental health and social care legislation, disseminate the outcomes of research and contribute to improvement initiatives.
You’ll have a wide range of additional responsibilities – these include focusing on your own continuous personal development, overseeing work undertaken by the colleagues you’re supervising, reviewing key performance indicators and taking appropriate action to manage areas of concern. Committed to ensuring systems are in place to monitor service delivery, and making sure that quality and financial standards are met, we’ll also expect you to develop an effective annual business plan for the portfolio of services we manage.
Please refer to the Job Description for more information.
About You:
With well developed knowledge of all relevant legislation, you’ll have plenty of practical post-qualification experience that should include working in the community with people who are experiencing severe and enduring mental health problems. It’s important that you’re ready to supervise students and other members of staff, and in addition to experience of audit work and quality assurance, you’ll be skilled at participating in and chairing meetings.
Capable of defining your team members’ work and prioritising and delegating appropriately, you’ll possess the skills to plan services, develop partnerships with key stakeholders and work within culturally diverse communities. We’ll also look for the ability to make autonomous decisions based on an analysis of complex problems and judgement about available options.
When it comes to qualifications, you should have a degree in Social Work or its equivalent, be registered with Social Work England and be an Approved Mental Health Professional, Practice Assessor or Best Interests Assessor. Skilled at establishing positive working relationships with other teams and external agencies, and able to work effectively in a potentially stressful environment while prioritising your workload, you’ll be a superb communicator with a flexible approach to your working hours. And it goes without saying that you’ll treat our service users with respect and dignity, and be committed to adopting a culturally sensitive approach that considers the needs of the whole person.
Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.
The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority ( GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' ( formally known as B.A.M.E, Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.
What We Offer:
Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster.
Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.
At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties
As a forward thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.
The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.