Advanced Social Worker – Opal Team, Integrated Adolescent Service
Job specification
Location: Swindon
Hours: 37 hours per week
Contract type: 16/02/2025
Job reference: RNR002580
Interview date: 25/02/2025
Date posted: 30/01/2025
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 our children are safe.
We have an exciting and unique opportunity to join the Opal Team as an Advanced Social Worker. The Opal Team are a specialist team who support children and young people who are at risk of, or experiencing, harm outside of their home as a result of child exploitation or serious youth violence. The team is also developing its support for children displaying harmful sexual behaviour.
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 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
The Opal Team provide intensive, tailored and creative support to children at risk of experiencing harm outside of their home. We work alongside social workers and lead professionals across children’s social care, providing specialist intervention to address and reduce these risks. The Opal Team do not hold statutory case responsibility for the children we work with. This allows us to work intensively with the children we support and be responsive at ‘critical moments’ for them.
At the heart of our work is the ambition to foster positive, persistent and long-term relationships and develop protective factors that build resilience in children/young people who are on the cusp of experiencing or experiencing harm outside the home. We will provide a flexible, responsive service to children and their families. We adopt a ‘Child First’ and Restorative Practice approach in our work.
We will empower young people to build and restore positive and trusted relationships and support active engagement and participation, ensuring the voice of the child or young person is embedded in the work we undertake. We will deliver our work where and when young people and families need them, being flexible in our service delivery.
Advanced Social Workers are highly skilled in their field of social work, are routinely involved in supervision or oversight of others, complex practice and decision-making and learning and development. They ensure the integration of professional knowledge, the perspectives of people using services and research evidence routinely in their practice and promote this with others. There is an expectation that you would offer mentoring within the service, and support the management team.
As an Advanced Social Worker within the Opal Team, you will play a key role in the continual development of the team and our support for children experiencing harm outside of their home.
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.
As part of the Opal Team, you will use principles of the Contextual Safeguarding approach to identify and intervene in the environments where young people are experiencing harm, working with community partners to build safety for the young people in their communities.
We are looking for an applicant who:
* Has a strong understanding and practice experience of supporting children who have been impacted by child exploitation and are at risk of harm outside their home.
* Has a strong knowledge of contextual safeguarding approaches and experience of implementing these in their work with children.
* Is able to build trusting and effective relationships with children and young people and is able to act as a strong advocate for them at all times.
* Is able to demonstrate excellent partnership working skills.
* Has an understanding of and experience of supporting children who display harmful sexual behaviour.
* Has experience of supporting the practice, learning and development of colleagues.
* Has a passion for this area of practice and a determination to improve outcomes for children.
You will require a Social Work qualification and be registered with Social Work England. This is an advanced role so you should have a range of post-qualifying experience. Our service is based in Swindon town centre, we embrace a hybrid working model with an expectation of social workers spending a minimum of three days in the office.
Our teams are ambitious and proactive and we are looking for a social worker who will share that ambition and be a part of our journey, as well as maintaining a focus on safeguarding and improving the outcomes of our children impacted by exploitation.
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).
The ability to travel throughout the Borough will be required.
* 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, revitalised 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.
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