The Cambridgeshire Child Protection Service and Cambridgeshire Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) sit in Quality Assurance Practice & Improvement (QAPI) within the Children’s Families and Education directorate. There are three Service Managers (one for this vacancy, one for the Independent Reviewing Officers and one for Quality Assurance, Participation and Independent Visitors) plus a manager for the Children’s Complaints team who report directly to the QAPI Service Director. The CP Chairs, Independent Reviewing Officers and LADOs are all experienced Social Workers who work collaboratively with children and families, colleagues from within Children’s Services and partner agencies to ensure the best outcome is achieved for children. Our Quality Assurance officers undertake audits alongside colleagues, to help Cambridgeshire look at areas of practice where further development and learning is beneficial and to celebrate and build on positive practice. The Participation team work with children and young people providing support and activities. Cambridgeshire works hard to ensure children and young people in care have an Independent Visitor if this is something they have requested. Colleagues in the Complaints team share learning gained from complaints, this is disseminated across Children’s Services. If you would like more information or an informal discussion about this role please contact Julie Boot, PA to Liz Clarke, Service Director Quality Assurance and Practice Improvement, on 01480 377685 Interviews will be held in person on 28th February 2025 at New Shire Hall in Alconbury Weald. Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Our benefits We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage… A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes Take a look at our Employment Benefits Brochure attached to this advert to find out more. What will you be doing? This is an exciting and varied role where your input can make a positive difference. You will line manage the CP Chairs and LADOs offering monthly supervision and support in their continuous professional development ensuring these parts of the Service fulfil statutory duties to a high standard. You will have oversight of all ICPC requests and will work closely with the Senior Business Officer for the CP Service ensuring ICPCs and RCPCs are held within timescale. You will support CP Chairs in: their skills of chairing large multi-agency CP conferences; working with families and professionals to produce SMART CP plans; raising concerns where practice is of concern (using the CP Mid-point Monitoring Procedure). Where areas of concern are highlighted you may need to escalate these to the Service Director. You will have an overview of all LADO referrals and ensure the LADO threshold is applied to make sure multi-agency involvement in response to all allegations made. It is the Service Manager's responsible for keeping the Service running and as such on occasions you may be required to step in and Chair a CP Conference or a LADO Allegations Management Meeting. You will respond to any complaints and FOI requests and you will be the Cambridgeshire representative at MAPPA Level 3 and at other meetings such as CDOP. On a more strategic level you will have an awareness of the numbers of Cambridgeshire children subject to a CP plan and an understanding of any patterns and themes in terms of referrals. You will need to be in tune with LADO cases and you will be asked to analyse and share data and provide reports at various panels and boards. About you This role requires an experienced, registered Social Worker who has significant knowledge and skills in safeguarding. The successful candidate needs to be able to demonstrate leadership qualities and line management experience. You will need to be able to work under pressure and make decisions to ensure all work undertaken is in line with keeping children safe. The Service Manager needs to ensure concerns about practice, cases or children are escalated to enable a multi-agency approach to complex matters with the knowledge and oversight of the Senior Leadership Team. For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification. About us Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes. Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do. We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions. Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch. Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion. https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers