Social Worker (Parenting Assessment Team)

SHROPSHIRE COUNCIL; Shrewsbury; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A local authority is looking for a specialist to support their Children & Safeguarding Services, focusing on parenting assessments. You will work with families to assess and improve their capacity to care for children safely. Key responsibilities include coordinating assessments, attending court, and providing guidance to less experienced staff while facilitating learning opportunities. This role demands compliance with child protection policies and comprehensive record-keeping.

Benefits

28 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Training and development opportunities

Pension scheme

Qualifications

• Experience in social work practice with a focus on child safeguarding.
• Ability to conduct assessments and maintain accurate records.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to comply with safety protocols.

Responsibilities

• Conduct parenting assessments and support team staff.
• Engage with families to enhance child welfare.
• Attend court as needed to represent assessments.

Skills

Carrying out parenting assessments

Engaging with children and parents

Compliance with child protection protocols

Record keeping

Education

Relevant social work qualification

Registered with Social Work England

Job description

As Shropshire Council we are rightly proud of our achievements and we have proven to be a resilient local authority in our response to the many challenges we overcome, particularly over recent years. We will be continuing this momentum with ambition and a focus on delivering our four key priorities outlined within the Shropshire Plan: Healthy People, Healthy Environment, Health Economy and Healthy Organisation.

Overview of your role

You will work within Shropshire's Children & Safeguarding Services, supporting a team of Parenting Assessment Workers who will be working with parents of children where concerns have been raised about their capacity and capability to care safely for their child, or meet their assessed needs. You will be carrying a workload of parenting assessments, or co‑work assessments alongside less experienced workers. Parenting assessments will be used to determine the next stage of a child's plan, and could be used as evidence in care proceedings, where you or a member of your team may need to give evidence in court. Therefore, a key element of your role is to ensure all parenting assessments are completed in timescale and to a high standard to enable effective decision‑making.

Manager and responsibilities

• Reporting to one of the Team Managers, Case Management, who is responsible for your health and safety, training and development.
• Completing comprehensive and analytical assessments of parents using the parent assessment model, standard parenting assessment model and risk assessments.
• Contributing to the learning and development of others, promoting best practice in their own work, mentoring and coaching colleagues and co‑working parenting assessments, where directed by the Team Manager. As part of this role you will be expected to organise and facilitate learning opportunities for the team including monthly reflective group supervision.
• Responsible for completing within expected timescales all mandatory corporate and role‑specific training. Training requirements will be detailed in your corporate induction and Personal Development Plan (PDP). Courses are accessed via the council Learning Management System via the Intranet.

What you will be doing

Service Delivery

• Carrying a caseload of complex Parenting Assessments and co‑working with less‑experienced staff to ensure you maintain your continuous professional development in social work practice.
• Engaging parents and their children to bring about change that will reduce risk and support children reaching their potential.
• Complying with CLA/Child Protection procedures/processes that are applicable to your service.
• Providing high quality resources of professional social work knowledge and expertise to your team of Parenting Assessment Workers, including group meetings, participating in group supervision, assisting practice, attending court, and reviews, to assist the team in ensuring that it carries out high quality practice.
• Attending, and chairing where appropriate, mid‑point review meetings.
• Attending court, where appropriate, to assist the team in ensuring that key professional input and expertise is provided to high profile and sensitive cases.
• Assisting in the implementation of the practice standards.
• Developing an understanding and awareness of issues relating to equal opportunities and anti‑discriminatory practice and to demonstrate this in carrying out your duties.
• Complying with safe systems of work in accordance with the Health and Safety Welfare policies and procedures including lone working.
• Promoting continuing personal and professional development through staff performance process.
• Maintaining your own training and development to meet the professional competencies as laid down in the SWE framework.
• Maintaining awareness of changes in legislation and related policies and practices and ensure all social work staff are also informed of these changes to enable consistent and timely implementation.
• Supporting induction for new starters at the direction of the Team Manager.
• Keeping accurate case records and other information in accordance with approved Policies and Procedures.
• To act as a champion role for a particular area of practice (parenting assessments) including keeping up to date with research developments, attending specific forums and groups in relation to this and undertaking relevant training.
• Recognising when practice issues arise and escalating these appropriately to the Team Manager or Service Manager.
• Contributing to the Permanency Policy and Corporate Parenting Strategy ensuring children looked after have a secure base and are enabled to return to the care of their birth family where possible, and where not able to do so to develop safe and positive lifelong links.

Budget Management

• To maintain oversight of any budgetary spend of the Parenting Assessment Workers, signposting to existing resources and raising requests to the Team Manager if other resources are required.

Performance Management

• To contribute to the collection of data in relation to specific targets as directed, that contributes to service development and demonstrates outcomes and unmet need.

Supervision

• Maintain professional standards using policies in accordance with Shropshire Council and Children’s Services Supervision Policy and Procedures.
• Prepare and contribute to your own supervision in line with the Children’s Services Supervision Policy & Procedures.

Strategic Planning

• To contribute to the planning and development of services, including any future consideration that may be given to emerging national developments.
• To respond to changes or developments in guidance and legislation and to alert senior managers and teams to changes that could impact on the authority.
• To work with others contributing to planning and delivery of services.

Links

• To build and maintain links with case‑holding teams and other support services, and with parents and carers and providers in order to provide an effective parenting assessment service.

Other duties

• The above duties are an illustrative outline and are not an exhaustive list. You will be expected to become involved in a range of work to enable the service to respond effectively to the changing requirements of the Council and changes affecting the workforce.

What we expect of you

• Adopt a customer focused approach when delivering your service, ensuring engagement with service users and maintenance of an appropriate personal profile.
• Act as an advocate for your service and work collaboratively with colleagues across the whole Council to meet the needs of the people of Shropshire.
• Meet individual, service and personal development targets agreed through the Personal Development Review Process, learn from experience and are committed to continuous improvement individually and as an employee of the Council.
• Work with colleagues to meet your team's key performance indicators, support a culture of team working and ensure the team functions successfully in support of the Council's corporate and service objectives.
• Meet the behaviours and competencies adopted by the Council in the way in which they achieve their objectives and carry out their work.

Conditions of service and working hours

• The post is for 37 hours per week, over 5 days. Normal office hours are 8:45‑5pm Monday‑Thursday and Friday 8:45‑4pm with a lunch break of 45 minutes. Occasional evening work and weekend may be required.
• The post is subject to the Council's annualised hours scheme as implemented within the specific work area.
• Annual leave entitlement is a pro‑rated flat rate scheme of 207 hours (28 days) annual leave plus bank holidays, with five days extra awarded to those staff with five years local government service giving an entitlement of 244 hours (33 days). Two days of an employee's allowance (pro‑rata for part‑time staff) must be taken at Christmas for any potential Christmas closures. Employees who work in a building/service which is required to open over the Christmas period, the two days leave (pro‑rata) can be carried over into your next leave year but must be used by the end of March.
• The appointment is subject to one month's notice in writing on either side. The appointment is subject to six months' satisfactory probationary service during which time the notice period will be one week on either side.
• Smoking is not allowed in Council buildings, in Council vehicles or in any Council place of work.
• It is a condition of your appointment that you provide a suitable vehicle for the performance of your duties and that this is readily available for use during normal working hours. You are entitled to claim for reimbursement of the costs of travel on council business at the rate of 45 pence per mile.

Pre‑employment checks

• Satisfactory employment references.
• Evidence of the qualifications required for the post/listed on your application form.