Social Worker - Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children

Cambridgeshire County Council; Huntingdonshire; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 44,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing package

Protected time for CPD

Relocation package

Pay progression scheme

Retention payments up to £8,392

Refer a Friend scheme

Cambridgeshire Academy for Reaching Ex

Job summary

Cambridgeshire County Council in Huntingdon is recruiting for the UASC team to lead safeguarding work for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people, ensuring trauma-informed assessments and robust plans that reflect the child’s voice and best outcomes. As a qualified Social Worker, you will undertake age assessments, report to court and other forums, and travel countywide.

You’ll join a supportive Leaving Care service committed to safeguarding and developing practitioners through

Qualifications

• Lead safeguarding professional following child protection procedures.
• Undertake age assessments and other statutory assessments (Merton compliant).
• Develop empowering relationships with children, families and involve courts.
• Qualified Social Worker with Social Work England registration.
• Willingness to travel countywide and out of county.

Responsibilities

• Act as lead professional for safeguarding matters and ensure timely actions.
• Undertake holistic assessments and produce SMART plans.
• Produce reports for forums including court, reflecting the child’s voice.

Skills

Unaccompanied asylum seekers

Safeguarding experience

Assessment experience

Job description

Job responsibilities

Do you have a passion for, and experience in, supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people, their needs, experiences, and their future? Are you enthusiastic and have the childs voice at the heart of everything you do? Join us in our Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) team! Our team is made up of Social Workers and Personal Advisors and lead on all aspects of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young peoples experiences from the point that they come to Cambridgeshire. Recognising the trauma, challenges, and loss our children and young people have been through, whilst being able to undertake holistic assessments of their needs (including age assessments where necessary) and support them through the immigration system, whilst also being ambitious for their future. Based in Scott House, Huntingdon, no two days are the same and we have fantastic ambitions for this team within the Leaving Care service.

Closing date 4 October. Interviews will be held week commencing 12 October.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• 6 days of protected time each year to support in maintaining your Continuous Professional Development
• A relocation package (eligibility applies)
• A pay progression scheme to enable you to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills
• Scalable retention payments of up to £8,392 over a 3 year period, starting after your first full year of employment
• A Refer a Friend Scheme where if you refer another Social Worker to us who is subsequently employed by us as a result of that introduction, well pay you an introduction fee of £350
• Access to our Cambridgeshire Academy for Reaching Excellence (CARE) who will support your development, enabling you to become the best practitioner you can be

For more information and to see our other benefits, take a look at the benefits brochure attached to this advert.

What will you be doing?

Acting as the lead professional, you’ll ensure all matters in respect of safeguarding are dealt with promptly, effectively and in line with child protection procedures, escalating where necessary. You’ll undertake assessments to identify and respond to needs, building on strength and ensuring that analysis is robust and leads to clear outcomes that can be met through SMART targets. These include Brief Enquiries (age assessment), Full Merton Compliant Age assessments and Human Rights assessments. You will develop effective and empowering relationships, engaging with children, young people, and their families, which will facilitate change and improve outcomes. With the childs voice at the heart of your work, you’ll produce reports and plans for a variety of forums, including court, which are child focussed and reflect their experience.

About you

We're looking for a confident and dynamic individual with established unaccompanied asylum-seeking children experience including completing Age Assessments. Your competency in this area will enable you to work independently from day one whilst working as part of a supportive team.

• Be aqualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration
• Havethe ability towork from a variety of locations and travel countywide, and out of county, independently

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.