Senior Practitioner - Children with Disabilities

All of our job vacancies are advertised at www.fife.gov.uk/jobs

Job Details

The post is for a Senior Practitioner in a specialist Children with Disabilities team within the Children and Families Service. The successful candidate will work as part of a team, supporting children, young people and their families to access services specific to the needs or risks they may be experiencing.

Key responsibilities include:

• Have knowledge and understanding of Child and Adult Protection guidelines and information sharing protocols
• Be required to and have experience in undertaking professional supervision of Social Workers and Social Work Assistants supporting their professional development and ensuring Council policy and procedures are followed.
• Be required to work within service processes and procedures to assess and undertake appropriate and relevant planning for children to ensure positive outcomes are completed within timescales.
• Completing Quality Assurance audits
• Undertaking thorough and informed comprehensive assessments of need and risk.
• Working individually and/or collaboratively to produce plans to support children, young people and their families.
• Assessing, managing, monitoring and reducing risks to service users and others.
• Contributing to complex assessments of need and risk with an aim of improving outcomes whenever possible.
• Carrying a small children and families’ caseload with varying complexity, requiring specialist skills and knowledge to enable appropriate and effective responses to the needs/risks of service users.
• Providing written reports as required, including informed recommendations concerning care/action plans.
• Attending meetings and case reviews.
• Updating and ensuring the accuracy of all relevant service user records and taking responsibility for the effective application of information management systems.
• Engaging and working in partnership with service users, family members, Police, Health, statutory/voluntary agencies and others as appropriate.
• Chairing meetings and review panels as appropriate.

The Person

A Diploma in Social Work (or equivalent) qualification is essential, as is registration with the Scottish Social Services Council.

You will have one of the following:

An accredited post-qualifying award (e.g. Certificate in Child Protection Studies, Mental Health Officer Accreditation, Practice Teacher Award, etc.)

Other essential person criteria for this post are:

• Ability to travel throughout Fife
• Experience of assessment tools
• Knowledge of national outcomes, policies, procedures, professional practice models, values and standards
• Skills in risk management and caseload management
• Knowledge of appropriate legislation
• Initiative taking skills
• Experience of promoting equality and diversity
• Experience of analysing information
• Team working skills
• Ability to provide a regular, efficient and effective service
• Organisation skills
• Knowledge of information sharing protocols
• Problem solving skills
• Communicating skills
• Prioritisation skills
• Negotiation skills
• Ability to work effectively with others and on own

You are required to register with Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) within 6 months of taking up employment in this role and to complete the required Post Registration Training and Learning (PRTL) over the first registration period.

You may be required to obtain a Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme Membership or Disclosure Check for this role.