1. a Collaborative Approach to Working with Internal and External Citizens/Colleagues And

Job title: Case Worker / Directorate: People
Post number: / Division: Adult Services
Grade: / Section/team: CTPD
Overall purpose of job:
To provide support to citizens and their carers and families who have needs, to ensure their needs and aspirations continue to be met. To enable citizens to identify their own needs and desired outcomes for themselves and their carers.
To promote a model of person centred support to citizens and carers to determine their own solutions.
Post holders will be expected to be flexible in undertaking the duties and responsibilities attached to their post and may be asked to perform other duties, which reasonably correspond to the general character of the post and are commensurate with its level of responsibility.
Main responsibilities:
1. To support citizens and carers:
• Through the completion of initial and full assessments with people with less complex needs under appropriate supervision and support;
• To develop a support plan under appropriate supervision and support that is creative, person centred and outcome based and linked to circles of support;
• To identify the personal budget to meet unmet needs;
• To support individuals to organise effective support within their personal budget;
• To monitor and review support plans, identifying outcomes achieved and unmet needs and aspirations.
• To help people, manage risk in the support options they choose.
2. Where required, assist in the continuing management of an individual’s support to ensure increasing independence (including through the use of enablement services) and control over their life, and that they are assisted in meeting their changing circumstances.
3. To facilitate links within the community to support citizens to have choice and meet individual need. To support citizens and carers to resolve issues and find innovative solutions. To collate and share information about services and community resources and to support the development of community resources.
4. Identify any matters relating to a citizen’s circumstances, including family and carer arrangements. Ensure that the relevant parties are involved and the circumstances are reflected in conjunction with a citizen’s right to choice and control.
5. Develop and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues within and outside the Council (including the NHS), private and voluntary partners, to ensure, the smooth transition of citizens and their carers through health and social care system and the meeting and delivery of Adult Social Services and citizen requirements.
6. With appropriate guidance, take the lead on, the assessment of Continuing Health Care funding where appropriate. Liaise with health colleagues.
7. Identify training and development needs with the line manager, taking an active part in supervision and appraisal. Access development opportunities as they arise and share learning with others, thereby helping the development of a learning culture.
Assist with the induction of new recruits and the development of students.
8. Maintain case records ensuring that all necessary information and data meets the relevant and stated levels of accuracy, quality and timeliness.
9. Act in accordance with national legislation and local policies and procedures in relation to The Mental Capacity Act, Deprivation of Liberty guidance and Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults.
10. To respond in emergencies in a timely manner, with support and guidance, to ensure the safety and well being of the citizens of North Lincolnshire.
Knowledge, skill and experience:
1. Ability to support citizens and carers to assess their own needs and aspirations in a way that is enabling and empowering and in line with common tasks and responsibilities.
2. Ability and commitment to undertake QCF Level 3 Diploma in Health & Social Care.
3. Experience of working with adults in a social services or health setting.
4. A good understanding of the challenges and needs of citizens, carers and families and the ability to support them.
5. Ability to work in partnership with statutory private and 3rd sector local and regional bodies.
6. Knowledge of national policies and local procedures and processes in relation to Mental Capacity Act, Deprivation of Liberties Safeguards and Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults.
7. Knowledge and understanding of national agendas e.g. Personalisation and person centred support. To be able to contribute to the achievement of Putting People First in North Lincolnshire.
8. Good negotiation, liaising and networking skills.
9. Ability to work on own initiative and as a team player.
10. Good communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing.
11. Ability to effectively plan, prioritise and evaluate own workload
12. Ability to use IT systems eg databases, word, email etc
Creativity and innovation:
1. To creatively support citizens and carers, to arrange and implement support that is flexible, responsive to need and controlled by the individual, and achieve identified outcomes.
2. To facilitate links within the community that resolve individual matters and find innovative solutions.
3. To work across localities recognising diversity and differing demands
4. To work in partnership with key stakeholders to implement preventative support within the community. Promote and stimulate services to meet the identified needs of people in North Lincolnshire, focussing on person-centred care and facilitate this at every opportunity.
Contacts and relationships:
1. Wide range of internal and external contacts on a routine basis:
• Citizens – agreeing and implementing individual support plans
• Carers – supporting and empowering and agreeing and implementing individual support plans
• Statutory and private and 3rd sector organisations - networking
• Members of the general public – signposting, informing, giving.
• Generally this will be straight forward but on occasions it may be necessary to deal with contentious and challenging issues.
2. Contact with other statutory private and 3rd sector organisations when representing citizens in North Lincolnshire e.g. benefits agency, housing benefits etc.
3. To act as designated worker for individual citizens and liaise with carers and other professionals.
4. Liaison with colleagues in Health Service daily.
5. Work with line manager, service manager and other NLC Senior Managers to maximise opportunities for citizens of North Lincolnshire.
6. Maintain contact and support networks with colleagues (both within and outside of the council), on matters including safeguarding and quality of care.
Decision making:
1. Contributes to casework decisions on matters affecting the lives of citizens and their carers.
2. Contributes to the routine day to day decisions within the teams seeking guidance and assistance if necessary
3. Make decisions on eligibility using fair access to care criteria.
4. Re-evaluate and prioritise caseloads and other work commitments, giving due regard to the needs and vulnerability of individuals.
5. Whilst recognising the importance and accountability of procedural compliance and decision making, take responsibility for deciding when to refer to managers when additional support and guidance is required.
6. Contributes to decisions relating to community based initiatives
7. Assists with decisions relating to service users personal budgets
8. To take responsibility for personal safety, giving regard to that of colleagues and working environments, reporting any concerns regarding health and safety.
Responsibility for resources:
1. Sole responsibility for physical equipment such as laptops/mobile phone when away from base, having an appropriate value of£400.
2. The post holder will be working away from base 40% in the office and 60% in the community.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
Work demands:
1. The nature of the work involves interruptions to tasks and changing priorities e.g. safeguarding alerts or urgent referrals
2. Managing time and caseload effectively.
3. Constant changes to individuals support plans due to change of circumstances.
4. The post will involve flexible working, hours and place of work to include hot-desking and home working with requirements to visit and work in remote locations with individuals, teams, services and partners.
Physical demands:
·  There are no specific physical demands to this job.
Working conditions:
·  Family and home visits may expose individuals to unhealthy environments e.g. smells, passive smoking and infestations.
Work context:
1. Will undertake lone working and must adhere to policies and procedures.
2. Will visit citizens and carers in their own homes and these will include new and unknown referrals.
3. Some risk associated with home visits, e.g. potentially either physical or verbal aggression from citizens or their carers.
4. Minimum risk of challenging behaviour from clients.
5. Ability to travel across a wide geographical area in a timely and flexible manner adhering to Lone Working policies and procedures.
Position in organisation:
Indicate how many staff the post is directly accountable for:
Are posts in more than one location? Yes No
Please indicate which post(s) ______
The post is subject to:
Disclosure of convictions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Exemption) Act 1974 Yes □ No □
Political restriction Yes □ No□
Employee:
(signed) / (print) / Date:
Manager: (signed) / (print) / Date:

Common Tasks and Responsibilities

1. A collaborative approach to working with internal and external citizens/colleagues and partners – adopting a win: win approach at all times.

2. Take a proactive approach to your role and responsibilities demonstrating a capability to ‘self start’ and taking responsibility for delivering personal outcomes.

3. Be influencers in their relationships with others enabling an impact on performance. Demonstrate a desire to be self-responsible and self determined.

4. Demonstrate an understanding and vision of your own area of work and understand your role within this.

5. Demonstrate approachability, which fosters successful relationships with others.

6. Demonstrate an understanding of strategic and operational actions and their relationship.

7. Consistently seek and provide constructive and developmental feedback about performance to enable the service to meet its vision.

8. Demonstrate a personal credibility both with colleagues and partners of the Service.

9. Actively seek to understand and derive a benefit from the relationship that you hold with managers: including feeding back that which is not helpful.

10. Demonstrate a high capacity to behave self responsibly – and quickly integrate feedback about your own performance through your own self-development.

11. Demonstrate through practice citizens’ involvement in reaching their outcomes.

N.B – Not included in the evaluation process

Policy and Resources Cabinet Member – 19th September 2012, Implemented – 8th October 2012 Page 1 of 3