Lead Child Protection Practitioner

London Social Work for Children; London Borough of Harrow; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary with Market Factor

Up to 25 days annual leave (plus bank)

Relocation allowance up to £6,000

Development opportunities in lead role

Health and wellbeing services

Retention bonus up to £6,000

Job summary

Harrow Council is seeking a Lead Child Protection Practitioner to join the Multi-Agency Child Protection Team and lead complex safeguarding work with partners across police, health and education. You will chair strategy meetings, conferences and risk assessments, providing expert consultation and ensuring child-centred planning.

A recognised social work qualification and current registration are essential, with extensive frontline experience in statutory child protection.

Qualifications

• Qualified social worker with current Social Work England registration.
• Extensive frontline statutory child protection practice experience.
• Strong knowledge of child protection legislation and multi-agency safeguarding processes.
• Experience chairing or leading complex child protection meetings and strategy discussions.

Responsibilities

• Leading and coordinating Section 47 child protection enquiries across Children’s Services.
• Chairing strategy meetings, child protection conferences and other multi-agency safeguarding discussions.
• Providing expert consultation and professional challenge to social workers and partner agencies.
• Supporting timely, evidence-informed and defensible decision-making where children may be at risk of significant harm.
• Contributing to protection and safety planning focused on improving outcomes for children and young people.
• Promoting high standards of recording, information-sharing and quality assurance across the child protection pathway.
• Modelling relational, strengths-based, trauma-informed and culturally competent practice.

Skills

Social work experience

Child protection knowledge

Risk analysis

Stakeholder engagement

Professional judgement

Anti-racist practice

Education

Social Work qualification (BSW/DipSW/CQSW)

Job description

The London Borough of Harrow is embarking on an exciting period of change as we deliver a series of ambitious Children’s Reforms Programmes – including Families First, Best Start Family Hubs, Best Start in Life and SEND Reforms. We strive to help every child thrive and through the reforms we are reshaping our future support for children, young people and families across the borough.

As part of the Families First Programme, we are building a practice system where relationships are key, where we work alongside children and families encouraging family led decision making and offering multi-disciplinary help when its needed. We are building on our strengths to further improve our approach to child protection, remodelling our system to create a dedicated Multi-Agency Child ProtectionService (MACPS), to have the lead role in keeping children and adolescents safe.

Are you an experienced child protection social worker with the expertise, confidence and professional curiosity to lead complex safeguarding decision-making? Harrow Council is seeking Lead Child Protection Practitioners to join our Multi-Agency Child Protection Team and play a central role in strengthening statutory child protection practice across Children’s Services.

This is a specialist role for a qualified and registered social worker who can provide expert leadership across Section 47 child protection enquiries, strategy discussions, child protection conferences and multi-agency safeguarding activity. Working alongside partners from police, health, education and wider children’s services, you will help ensure that children and young people are protected from significant harm and that families receive clear, timely and proportionate intervention.

The role is directly aligned to the Lead Child Protection Practitioner Standards, which set out the knowledge and skills required to effectively lead child protection processes.

You will be expected to demonstrate strong capability in identifying and responding to actual or likely significant harm; engaging children and families during Section 47 enquiries; formulating risk and likelihood of significant harm; and planning and intervening to prevent or stop harm.

As Lead Child Protection Practitioner, you will provide consultation, challenge and guidance to social workers and partner agencies, promoting high-quality analysis, defensible decision-making and child-centred planning. You will bring together information from across the professional network, support robust assessment of risk inside and outside the home, and ensure safeguarding responses are relational, trauma-informed, anti-racist, inclusive and proportionate.

You will work within a co-located Multi-Agency Child Protection Team, exercising the local authority’s statutory child protection duties in line with the Children Act 1989, the Children Act 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children, the London Child Protection Procedures and Harrow’s local safeguarding arrangements.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Leading and coordinating Section 47 child protection enquiries across Children’s Services.
• Chairing strategy meetings, child protection conferences and other complex multi-agency safeguarding discussions.
• Providing expert consultation, guidance and professional challenge to social workers, managers and partner agencies.
• Supporting timely, evidence-informed and defensible decision-making where children may be suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm.
• Contributing to protection and safety planning that is clear, purposeful and focused on improving outcomes for children and young people.
• Promoting high standards of recording, analysis, information-sharing and quality assurance across the child protection pathway.
• Modelling relational, strengths-based, trauma-informed and culturally competent practice with children, families and professionals.

About you

We are looking for a confident and experienced practitioner who can bring professional authority, sound judgement and a strong commitment to child-centred safeguarding.

You will have significant operational experience in statutory child protection and a strong understanding of intra-familial and extra-familial harm, including adolescent exploitation and risk outside the home.

You will be able to demonstrate:

• A recognised social work qualification and current Social Work England registration.
• Significant recent experience in front-line statutory child protection practice.
• Detailed knowledge of child protection legislation, statutory guidance, the London Child Protection Procedures and relevant multi-agency safeguarding processes.
• Experience of chairing or leading complex child protection meetings, including strategy discussions, child protection conferences or risk outside the home meetings.
• Strong risk analysis, professional curiosity and the ability to hold complexity, uncertainty and multiple hypotheses.
• The ability to work collaboratively with families and partners while providing clear professional challenge when needed.
• Be committed to inclusive and culturally competent practice, ensuring anti-discriminatory engagement with children and families.

About Harrow

Harrow Council is the 12th largest London borough, and home to over a quarter of a million people. As one of the most culturally diverse local authorities in the UK, Harrow is a great place to live, work and visit; in our borough, a range of cultures, religions and opinions come together to produce high achieving schools and a close and friendly community.

As part of Harrow Children’s Services, we want our colleagues to live our values. These values describe what we stand for and how we do things at Harrow whilst inspiring, challenging and guiding us towards the delivery of our organisational ambitions and goals. Our three values are: Be Courageous, Do It Together and Make It Happen These values will also help us to achieve our equalities vision of being a proud, fair & cohesive Harrow, a great place to live, work & visit.

Social Work in Harrow is about practicing statutory children’s social work, promoting quality, consistency, and effectiveness of social work practice to ensure that children’s outcomes are positive. In terms of learning and development opportunities it is vital to have a comprehensive understanding of Children’s Services core standards to facilitate best practice in line with UK legislation, statutory and government and local guidance, incorporate the voice of the child in all we do and having an Anti-Racism and Inclusion perspectives.

In addition to the above, we already have a unique development program:

• a Management School
• a comprehensive weekly workshop programme for social workers
• Connected by Culture, a monthly workshop supporting our cultural competence and anti-racist practice.

We offer our social workers:

• Competitive salary inclusive of Market Factor
• The council offers a retention bonus of £3,000, which is paid after 3 years continuous service and a further £3,000 after a further 3 years of continuous service. This bonus is subject to conditions.
• Up to 25 days’ annual leave (plus bank holidays) rising to 30 days (plus bank holidays) after more than 5 years’ service
• Relocation allowance up to £6,000 (subject to eligibility)
• Development opportunities in key areas of specific lead roles, giving you the opportunity to learn new skills and to develop your practice
• Access to our corporate health and wellbeing services offering free confidential advice on a wide range of issues

If you have any questions about applying for this role, or are interested in having an informal discussion about working in children's social care at Harrow, please contact us at [e-mail]

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