Senior Social Worker

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; Manchester; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 38,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity to join the Greater Manchester Specialist Support Team as a Senior Social Worker. You will support individuals with learning disabilities and autism, working collaboratively within a multidisciplinary setting. The role offers regular supervision and training opportunities to enhance your professional development. The team aims to reduce hospital admissions and provide proactive risk management support. This position is ideal for those passionate about making a difference in the lives of vulnerable individuals.

Qualifications

• Degree in Social Work or equivalent required.
• Current Social Work England registration needed.
• Post-qualifying training in relevant areas.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist support to individuals with learning disabilities and autism.
• Work within a multidisciplinary team across Greater Manchester.
• Conduct Care Act assessments and safeguarding.

Skills

Equality and Human Rights

Complex Risk Assessment

Complex Risk Management

Ability to work in a multidisciplinary setting

Education

Degree in Social Work

DipSW

CQSW

Job description

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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to recruit two Band 6 (2.0 wte) Senior Social Workers to join an established team within the Greater Manchester Specialist Support Team (GMSST), which provides a service across Greater Manchester to service users with a learning disability and/or autism who present with risk of hospital admission, placement breakdown or forensic risk.

The service is very supportive of training opportunities to ensure that we continue to be aware of new developments which can be adapted and developed to support our service users. There are frequent opportunities to input into GM SST service development initiatives and represent the team in GM-wide projects.

You will receive regular supervision from a Highly Specialist Social Worker in the Specialist Support team and will also have access to direct and peer supervision across the Secure Division and from members of the multi-disciplinary team.

Main duties of the job

The post will be as part of the Greater Manchester Specialist Support Team (SST) based in Eccles. The GM SST is a multidisciplinary team consisting of Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Social Work, Psychology, Speech and Language Therapy, and Support Workers. You will be expected to work in all areas of Greater Manchester and liaise with the local Learning Disability, Mental Health and Autism services to develop proactive and preventative risk mitigation support, as well as discharge support for current inpatients.

You will have the opportunity to work within a team of skilled experienced social workers who have developed a core and specialized role within the wider team. You will provide specialist knowledge of Care Act assessment, Mental Capacity Act assessment and safeguarding to support colleagues across inpatient and community services.

GMSST aim to reduce risk of unnecessary hospital admission and facilitate discharge (from acute and secure settings) at the earliest opportunity and reduce restrictive practice where possible.. We also offer advice and consultation and training to external agencies.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

See job description and person specification for more detail.

To provide a specialist social worker role into the Greater Manchester Specialist Support Team; supporting people with a learning disability and / or autistic people who are at risk of hospital admission, placement breakdown or criminal justice system contact.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Degree in Social Work or DipSW or CQSW
• Current Social Work England registration
• Post-qualifying training (formally or work based) in relevant areas of social work and/or mental health, learning disability or forensics
• Evidence of significant continuing professional and personal development

Desirable criteria

• additional relevant qualifications

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Legislative Framework
• Health Act. 1999, National Service Frameworks, Mental Capacity Act (2006), Mental Health Act 2007
• Underpinning Knowledge and Understanding requirements of relevant legislation, Childcare legislation and criminal justice system, Care Programme Approach, Social work models in forensic work, Drugs, alcohol and substance misuse, Interaction between learning disabilities and offending behaviour within a family and social context
• National and local policies
• Models of risk assessment and risk factors and management, Financing of community care
• Housing and welfare provision, roles, responsibilities of other agencies, Learning from enquiries' reports, Role of Mental Health Review Tribunals, Victims
• Theoretical models of forensic social work/forensic psychiatry/forensic psychology
• Significant Post Qualification experience

Skills

Essential criteria

• A demonstrated understanding of Equality and Human Rights
• Ability to work in a multidisciplinary setting.
• Ability to apply social work practice in the framework of a nonmedical model.
• Complex Risk Assessment & Complex Risk Management skills
• Recording and preparing assessment and Mental Health Review Tribunal reports
• Ability to travel nationally at short notice to complete assessments and visit families
• To be able to practice as an autonomous professional

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email [e-mail] to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email [e-mail]) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.

Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• job description b6 social worker (PDF, 183.7KB)
• person spec b6 social worker (PDF, 183.7KB)
• Risk ID (PDF, 392.6KB)
• A Great Place to Work (PDF, 2.1MB)
• Our People Promise and Charter (PDF, 5.8MB)
• Employee Benefits (PDF, 950.7KB)