Assistant Team Manager

Southampton City Council; Southampton; Hybrid; GBP 49,000 - 53,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension scheme

25–31 days holiday

Flexible working

Training & development

Health & wellbeing support

Employee volunteering

Job summary

Southampton City Council’s Children’s Resource Service seeks an Assistant Team Manager (Grade 10) to lead a team of Social Workers, Early Help Advisors and Information Officers. The role focuses on triage, decision-making on safeguarding, and supporting multi-agency collaboration within the MASH framework.

Based at the Civic Centre with hybrid working (2 days at home per week), you’ll supervise staff, ensure timely workflows, and drive reflective practice and learning across CRS.

Qualifications

• Social work qualification (ESSENTIAL).
• Experience of leadership and management in the ‘front door’ services.
• Experience of working with the Conversation Model.
• Experience of multi-agency and multi-disciplinary team working.
• Experience of developing working partnerships across sectors.
• Knowledge of policies, regulations and guidance relating to safeguarding.
• Excellent personal organisational and communication skills.
• Clear understanding of Children and Learning Services and quality assurance.

Responsibilities

• Triage police, SCAS, out of hours worker notifications and prioritise safeguarding concerns.
• Update task list and allocate work to ensure timely calls and workloads for IOS/EHAS/SWs.
• Provide advice and support to IOs/EHAs/SWs and participate in case discussions.
• Complete Manager Oversight for contacts exceeding 24 hours and rationale for delays.
• Complete MO for closures and transfers.
• MO for contacts worked by EHAs/SWs and transfers as applicable.
• Oversee Information Requests and verify data shared by IOs.
• Attend and chair MARAC and make decisions from discussions.

Skills

Leadership

Front Door Services

Conversation Model

Multi-agency teamwork

Partnership development

Safeguarding Knowledge

Organisational Skills

Communication Skills

Education

Social work qualification

Job description

Assistant Team Manager – Children’s Resource Service

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our Children’s Resource Service. The role and remit of the team is to understand the needs of children and their families who are referred to Children’s Social Care, to ensure they receive the right service at the right time. This includes making timely decisions on levels of need and interventions for all children referred to the service. The function of the MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) sits within CRS enabling a multi-agency work environment where we collaborate with our partner agencies to aide decision making and share relevant and appropriate information.

About the team:

The team consists of Social Workers, Early Help Advisors and Information Officers. The MASH function includes working alongside our colleagues in Police, Health, Education, Probation, Housing, Substance Use and Independent Domestic Abuse Advisors.

Our team is based within the Southampton Civic Centre and is an office-based team with the flexibility of working at home 2 days a week, depending on the needs of the team and service.

We are on a journey with the embedding of ‘The Conversation Model’, a relationship-based approach whereby we have removed the online referral form and instead focused on having deep, meaningful conversations with our referrers including families themselves. This approach is aimed to have a better understanding of family’s needs at the first point of contact to result in better decision making regarding where the right support can be offered.

Are you ready to make a difference?

If so, then we would like you to join us.

We are passionate about understanding and supporting the needs and dreams of the children in Southampton. We want all of our children and young people in Southampton to get a good start in life, live safely, be healthy and happy and go on to have successful opportunities in adulthood.

Our Children’s Resource Service is seeking an Assistant Team Manager (Grade 10) for a permanent position.

If you would like to join our team your main duties will include:

• Triage police, SCAS, out of hours worker notifications- ensure all immediate safeguarding concerns are prioritised in the team.
• Update task list and allocate work/calls – they are responsible for ensuring calls are made in a timely manner, no delay for our children in the team, that the IOS/EHAS and SWs are being given appropriate workloads to allow for rich conversations and clear analysis/decision making within timescales.
• Give advice and support to all IOs/EHAs/SWs who require this in the day including case discussions.
• Complete Manager Oversight (MO) for contacts exceeding 24 hours - rationalising why the delay is proportionate for the child to ensure right help at the right time.
• Complete MO for all closures and transfers
• Complete MO for contacts being worked by EHAs and SWs, and completing transfers (as applicable)
• Responsibility for Information Requests being shared proportionately and accurately and oversighting why we are sharing the information. ATMs to check the information collated by the IOs.
• Attend and chair MARAC providing relevant information and being able to make decisions resulting from MARAC discussions and outcomes.
• Facilitate reflective sessions to promote learning and development within the team.
• Supervision of EHAs/ SWs/ IOs
• Auditing/practice development work to ensure best practice in CRS, celebrate successes within the team and highlight learning from areas of development.
• Community training and development - ensuring our relationships with our partner agencies are promoted and there are clear lines of communication with CRS and our partners.
• Supporting the Team Manager wherever appropriate including supporting Stage 1 Complaint Responses with the team manager’s oversight
• Ensuring referral feedback is sent out at point of closure/transfer in CRS and recorded on our system.
• Supporting in taking calls with professionals where families have not been made aware of the contact to CRS and the caller is unclear on whether a referral needs to be made.

Desired experience and skills

• A social work qualification (ESSENTIAL).
• Experience of leadership and management in the ‘front door’ services
• Experience of working with the Conversation Model
• Experience of multi-agency and multi-disciplinary team working
• Experience of developing working partnerships across sectors
• Knowledge of policies, regulations and guidance relating to safeguarding
• Excellent personal organisational and communication skills
• Clear understanding of Children and Learning Services and quality assurance.

Benefits

The successful applicant will benefit from a leadership team who care about their staff, a competitive salary, dedicated time for continuous professional development and high-quality reflective supervision.

What we can offer you:

Salary: The salary band for this role is £48,738 - £53,052 per annum. The starting salary is £48,738 with annual progression through the salary bands.

Here at SCC we have a range of different benefits, a few examples can be found below.

• Excellent local government pension with 15.2% employer contribution
• Death in service benefit of x3 salary, and optional salary sacrifice shared cost AVC (additional voluntary contribution)
• Generous holiday 25-31 days, based on role and service
• Flexible working options (role-dependent)
• Family-friendly policies - Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Shared/Unpaid Parental Leave, Time off for Dependents
• Training and development, including coaching and mentoring
• Health and wellbeing support - Employee Assistance Programme, Menopause Pledge, Mental Health First Aiders and access to a variety of staff networks
• Veteran-friendly employer with the Armed Forces Covenant
• Retail discounts and savings through the Southampton City Council benefits platform
• Discounted memberships at local sports and fitness centres
• Sustainable travel benefits - low emission car scheme, cycle to work, season ticket loans
• Employee volunteering scheme with 2 paid days leave to volunteer

For further information on our benefits package please visit Employee benefits (southampton.gov.uk)

We are the difference. Are you?

If you feel you have the necessary background, experience and skills to undertake this role we would like to hear from you.

Contact details for informal discussion

To discuss the post further, please contact Mandy Harrison, Team Manager - Children’s Resource Service: [e-mail] or Kristy Dixon, Service Manager: [e-mail]

Interview Information

Please note that interviews are scheduled for 3rd November 2026.

Recruitment contact details

Email: [e-mail]
Tel: [phone]
For more information about SCC please visit Southampton City Council