Post number: / Division: Disability and Mental Health
Grade:8 / Section/team: Intensive Support
Overall purpose of job:
To plan and provide an effective range of specialist social work services for adults with a Learning and/or Physical Disability, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Stroke or Sensory Impairment and their family carers. To carry out multi-disciplinary assessments, relevant statutory work. To help maintain individuals in their local community with maximum choice and control.
To take a lead in a specialist area ensuring needs and aspirations continue to be met. To promote a model of self determination to enable individuals and their carers to explore their own solutions to meet needs
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:
- Provide a statutory range of assessments reviews and reassessments. To facilitate person centred support planning. To provide multi-disciplinary specialist services to adults with a Learning and/or Physical Disability, Autistic Spectrum Disorder Stroke and Sensory Impairment and their families/carers, based on a reablement approach under the Adult Services offer that promotes independence and well being.
- Work with complex cases and vulnerable adults, including cases where personal liberty or safety is at stake. Participates in health screening and undertakes risk assessments and safeguarding adult investigations within the context of the multi agency policy and procedures across the whole of Adult Services.
- Work closely with other agencies planning, arranging and co-ordinating a range of innovative services to meet the needs of adults with a Learning and/or Physical Disability Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Stroke or Sensory Impairment and their family/carers, ensuring best value and qualitative arrangements are in place.
- Arrange and chair as necessary planning meetings and individual service reviews including emergency meetings
- Offers advice and guidance through regular supervision and ongoing support to the non qualified staff within the service.
- Works within all relevant legislative requirements and Council policy & procedures to the stated standards to assess and meet the needs of adults with a Physical Disability, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Stroke or Sensory Impairment and their family/carers and to provide appropriate support through the offer of a Personal Budget, where appropriate.
- Maintain manual and computerised case records and assist in the completion of statistical and workload returns as required for management information and quality systems
- Provides a training and consultancy service to staff of the Council and other agencies on their specialist area or work as appropriate.
- Represent the Council on various specialist groups both locally and regionally as required.
- Develops partnerships and working relationships in order to promote service transformation and to network effectively with other Service Providers to develop and manage Service provision and ensure individual’s needs are met.
- Attend multi-disciplinary and multi-agency forums, promoting effective cross agency working practices and recognising diversity.
- Takes responsibility for ensuring their own practice and training is up to date with current theory, best practice and legislative issues in order to maintain registration requirements including ability to risk assess and lone work.
- Prioritises own workload to meet set deadlines based on team, Service and Council strategic direction and key objectives.
- Carries out Duty Officer role to required rota
- Establishes and maintains links and partnerships with primary and secondary health care colleagues, internal and external service providers and agencies to meet the complex needs of service users, including those in transition from Child to Adult hood.
- Work flexibly and undertake any roles and responsibilities required by the organisation commensurate with this post
Knowledge, skill and experience:
1. Hold a relevant professional Social Work qualification and current registration with the HCPC (e.g. DIPSW). Demonstrate a willingness to undertake Post Qualification awards and demonstrate evidence of ongoing continuous professional development.
2. Knowledge of current national and local drivers, policies and other relevant white papers
3. Excellent communication both verbal and written.
4. Able to undertake a range of assessments and care planning for the service user group, taking account of quality and cost.
5. Can manage own caseload and prioritise a complex caseload working to identify deadlines/timescales.
6. Is able to make complex decision relating to risk assessments and safety issues.
7. Experience of safeguarding vulnerable adults and the ability to act as a safeguarding investigator.
8. Experience in Social Work practice and working with people with a disability and their families/carers.
9. Is able to work as a member of a multi-disciplinary team.
10. High level of I.T skills and ability to use IT systems in relation to electronic record keeping, correspondence and other related tasks.
11. Ability to research and analyse information compiled and present reports in relation to others
12. Good negotiation, influencing and networking skills to include training advice and consultation.
13. Ability to develop and maintain successful professional relationships.
14. To work in partnership with others to produce innovative plans to meet the needs of individuals with complex communication requirements using preferred styles.
15. Has a good knowledge of national policies and local procedures and processes in relation to Continuing Health Care, Mental Capacity Act, Deprivation of Liberties, and Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults.
16. To be willing to undertake Best Interest Assessors qualification that will enable Best Interest assessments to be undertaken.
17. The ability to work at a complex level on a varied caseload, evidenced within casework, observations and supervision.
19. Knowledge of Health and Safety.
Creativity and innovation:
- Find creative ways to engage and involve individuals, families and carers in decision-making.
- Promotes use of partnerships and encourages innovative solutions to develop person centred support services encouraging managed risk taking.
- At individual, team and service level encourages and participates in innovative problem solving forums in order to improve policy and practice.
- Frequently devise create individualised plans that will meet the needs of the individual and adapt to reflect changes in circumstances.
- Seeks practical solutions to promote inclusion of people with a physical disability within the community, including seeking a range of funding opportunities.
Contacts and relationships:
- Frequent contact with customers and family, seeking to value and keeping them at the centre of planning processes and service deliver and maximise their choice and control. Cases may be intricate and contentious due to the nature of the work therefore requiring tact and diplomacy.
- Regular contact with statutory, voluntary, private and community services and groups in order to maintain good working relationships.
- Participate in local and regional networks engaging and seeking partnerships to develop support and inclusion strategies for adults with a physical disability.
- Represents individuals at Mental Health tribunal, DWP appeals to promote safe and healthy lifestyles.
- Regular contact with the multi-disciplinary team/agencies in relation to individual caseloads and shared knowledge of risk management, allocations and referrals.
- Engaging with all service areas, external partners, service users, family and carers to ensure a holistic approach is delivered.
- Refers to Senior Social Worker/Team Manager on particularly complex cases.
Decision making:
- Responsible for ensuring the individual/family /multi agency/ disciplinary input is incorporated into all assessments and reviews as appropriate.
- Make recommendations based on assessment and risk to members of multi disciplinary team, parents, carers and individual.
- Supports non qualified staff to manage and prioritise their caseload in order to achieve agreed goals.
- Reviews individual care/support packages, re-contracting for new services/support to meet assessed need and within budgetary constraints seeking to achieve best value and promote client independence and informs manager of the findings.
- Day to day decision making around risk management and lone working.
- Makes decisions within delegation and knows when to consult.
- Reporting of safeguarding and vulnerable adult issues.
Responsibility for resources:
- Sole responsibility for mobile phone and laptop
- Working in direct accordance with worksmart ethos.
- Approximately 50% away from base.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
Work Demands:
- Changing priorities and deadlines open to regular interruption, i.e. changing needs of service users, safeguarding adult investigations, managerial demands re: central government returns.
- Requirement to meet team and service deadlines to ensure performance indicators are achieved.
- Responds to urgent referrals
- Primarily working office hours but flexibility required to meet service user needs and service demands.
- Prioritising workload and ability to negotiate with colleagues and other service providers in order to manage time effectively.
Physical demands:
- Normal physical effort
Working conditions:
- Office based and meeting rooms which will be well lit and ventilated
- Visits to clients homes where conditions may be disagreeable
Work context:
- Risk of physical, verbal aggression and abuse from service users, family carers, public, pets.
- Risk associated with lone working and undertaking home visits in particular to new/unknown referrals.
- Lone working in and out of council properties, other venues and homes.
Position in organisation:
Indicate how many staff the post is directly accountable for:
Are posts in more than one location? Yes No
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 8