Social Work Consultant
Recruitment Information Pack
Children and Young People’s Directorate- Social Care Services
Social Worker Recruitment
Information and Application Pack
Thank you for your interest in working for Sheffield’s Children and Young People’s Social Care Services.
This information and application pack contains further details about our service; our aspirations, developments, and commitment.
Contents
About us:
· Letter from Jonathan Crossley-Holland, Executive Director: Children and Young People’s Services
· About us: Children and Young People’s Social Care Services
· Our Structure
· A Great Place to Grow Up: Our Vision for Children and Young People in Sheffield
· Living and Working in Sheffield
What we can offer you:
· Benefits of working within Social Care Services
Social Work Vacancies in Sheffield:
· Your Application and our Recruitment Process
· Valuing Equality and Diversity
Message from Jonathan Crossley-Holland
Executive Director: Children and Young People’s Services
Sheffield City Council is a fast moving and exciting environment to live and work in. It is an excellent performing council that is currently developing integrated service delivery, with children, parents and communities at its heart.
The Children and Young People’s Directorate, incorporating both social care and education services, has been established since August 2005 and this has provided an opportunity to strengthen the service provided to children and young people across the city
As Executive Director, I am privileged to be leading this recently established directorate whose mission is to make Sheffield a leading European city in which to raise a family.
The Directorate is seeking to achieve this through partnership working as exemplified by the Sheffield Children And Young People’s 0-19+ Partnership Board. This has established a plan for the city, which identifies our key priorities as
q Improving educational achievement for all young people
q Safeguarding children in all settings and at all levels of need
q Improving outcomes for looked after and adopted children
q Reducing health inequalities
q Better early intervention and preventative working
q Enhancing the participation of children and young people
The city is therefore ambitious to do better for its children and understands that success will depend on the quality of its staff. Within Social Care we have developed a strategy that is building organisational support for evidence informed practice. As part of this strategy a framework for supporting continuous professional development within clearly described career pathways has been established.
Children’s Social Care forms part of Children’s Specialist Services, together with services for children with learning difficulties/disabilities and safeguarding services. The other service blocks include Local Delivery, Learning and Achievement, Resources and Development and Planning, Partnership and Performance.
Specialist Services, like all service blocks is managed by its own Director, with senior managers responsible for particular service areas. Social Care is divided into two service areas – Fieldwork and Provider services. Within fieldwork we have recently embarked on a programme of change that will align social works teams geographically with Local Delivery multi agency support teams. This will provide an integrated model of delivery across a spectrum of prevention and specialist services.
This directorate is ambitious to provide an outstanding service both to ensure positive outcomes for children and young people and also as a way of contributing to the success of the city. I hope this letter gives you a favour of the changes we are making to enhance the well being of children and young people of Sheffield and look forward to receiving your application.
Jonathan Crossley-Holland
Executive Director: Children and Young Peoples Directorate
Children and Young People’s Specialist Services- Social Care
The Director of Specialist Services is Jayne Ludlam. She is responsible for Social Care Services, Services for Children with Learning Difficulties/Disability, Safeguarding Services and the Health Strategy for Vulnerable children.
Specialist Services is
1. At the forefront of the development of ContactPoint (known locally as SafetyNET) and the implementation of the Common Assessment Framework
2. A provider of a wide range of continuous professional development opportunities, including post qualifying awards all of which contribute to GSCC re-registration requirements
3. Committed to organisational support for evidence informed practice (EIP). Practitioners are entitled to 3 days reading and reflection time, have Internet access and are invited to an annual EIP conference and regular practice and research seminars
4. A founder member of Research in Practice and one of the first Social Care Institute for Excellence practice partners
5. Committed to mobile and flexible working and maintaining a work /home life balance
Social Care is organised into two service areas - one responsible for provider services, such as family placements/residential care and the Youth Offending Service and the other for fieldwork services
Currently fieldwork services are managed by seven service managers with responsibility for
q Access/hospital/asylum services
q Area assessment and family support – north and south
q Children’s teams –north and south
q Permanence and Throughcare
q Children with Disabilities
The Permanence and Throughcare Service and the Children with Disability Service are currently subject to review and all the other social work teams will soon be reorganised into five locality social work areas and aligned geographically with Local Delivery multi agency support teams, across seven service districts. These changes will provide an integrated model of delivery across a spectrum of prevention and specialist services.
Services are based across three city centre sites and two decentralised offices- one in the north and the other in the south of the city.
Each social work team is managed by a team manager and consists of a mixture of senior practitioners, level 1 and 2 social workers and support workers. All practitioners receive regular supervision and an annual appraisal. The service operates a transfer scheme, which enables practitioners to enhance their professional development by transferring into different roles paid at the same grade
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18
Children’s Specialist Services
Fieldwork Services
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A Great Place to Grow Up
Our key aim is for Sheffield to be a great place to raise a family, and a great place to grow up and learn. Our main objectives are:
· To safeguard children from neglect, harm and abuse.
· To secure high levels of attainment and inclusion
· To promote lifelong learning as a catalyst for regeneration
There are 120,000 children and young people between the ages of 0 and 19 in Sheffield. Of these 35,000 will need some form of special support from Children and Young People’s Services as some point. The city’s challenge is to make sure every child achieves his or her potential, no matter what barriers there may be. To do that the city must make all four “tiers” of support, from the universal to highly specialist, work effectively and often in new ways:
Safeguarding children from harm and neglect is “everyone’s business”, and applies in all services and everywhere that children are looked after, at all levels of need. We are redesigning our children’s social care services to align with service districts (our 7 localities in Sheffield) and facilitate better inter-agency practice at individual casework level. We are working with schools, children’s centres and other settings to ensure that robust safeguarding systems are in place, and will roll out the model of good practice that has been developed in the Yewlands family of schools. We will undertake a programme of audit of our safeguarding practice in each service district. In 2008, building on the experience of our local “SafetyNet” system, we will implement the national “Contactpoint” system, which will make practitioners across education, health, social care, youth justice and the voluntary sector aware of who else is working with a child or young person so they can deliver better coordinated support.
The performance of our children’s social care service has improved significantly over the last two years. We have a record of strong performance on adoption and child protection practice. More recently, improvement have been made in relation to the stability of placements, health and participation of looked after children, and also the timely assessment of children in need. We are currently assessing our position against the Government’s White Paper on Looked After Children – ‘Care Matters’, and will implement its reforms with a particular focus on placement stability and access to high quality education and healthcare.
Living and Working in Sheffield
Think of a city... in a beautiful setting. Set in a dramatic landscape, half in the Peak National Park, the sheer greenness of Sheffield is amazing. Sheffield is England's greenest city, containing 150 woodlands and 50 public parks.
...with a vibrant heart
Its core transformed, its character intact, Britain’s fifth
largest city continues to develop with pride. A major
centre for higher education, shopping, culture and the
arts. It boasts top theatres and an exceptional club scene!
...where the living is good
Visit Sheffield and the chances are you’ll want to stay.
Each year thousands of graduates from our two
universities do! There’s just something about the place -
the people, the lifestyle, the buildings, the scenery.
...and pastimes are as easy or as hard as you like!
Entertainment & Culture…
Sheffield Theatres comprises three distinctive performance venues, the Crucible, Lyceum and Studio theatres. Together they form the largest regional theatre complex outside London and provide a wide variety of live entertainment. Whether it is drama, dance, comedy or music, Sheffield Theatres has something for everyone.
Hallam FM Arena has established an excellent reputation for hosting world-class events. A potential audience of over nine million people live within one hour's drive time of Hallam FM Arena which attracts almost one million people through it's doors every year. With its ice floor facility, the Arena is home to Sheffield's Super league ice hockey team the Steelers.
Sheffield is also well known for its great nightlife, from a vibrant club scene to major music events at venues such as the Octagon, City Hall and the Hallam FM Arena.
Comedy is also a big attraction in Sheffield. The annual “Grin up North” festival is growing in popularity every year alongside weekly comedy evenings at the Lescar and the Round House. The city has a vast array of bars and pubs to suit all tastes, from the traditional “Fat Cat” in the heart of Sheffield’s steel quarter, to late bars and restaurants in the student areas of Ecclesall Road and West Street.
Sheffield hosts major sporting attractions and venues... Football clubs, swimming - Ponds Forge has hosted international events, such as the European Swimming Championships and is the training centre for the national diving team. The Sheffield Ski Village is Europe's largest outdoor artificial ski resort.
The recently restored Victorian Botanical Gardens are the perfect oasis for escaping the hustle and bustle of the city! Browse the tropical plant displays, sample the culinary delights at the Curator's House or simply take in the tranquil scenery with a picnic on the lawns or a stroll through the 1836 landscape.
It took 2 million bricks to build Meadowhall- now one of Europe’s largest and most successful shopping malls. It’s within an hour’s drive of one in eight of the UK population and couldn’t be easier to get to from Sheffield City Centre. Just ten minutes on Sheffield’s state of the art Supertram and 270 stores await the dedicated shopper! With crèche facilities, an 11-screen cinema, many bars and restaurants and a great programme of events in the Oasis, Meadowhall makes a great family day out too!
Learning…
· Sheffield was voted Most Popular UK Student Destination (Virgin)
· Sheffield's two Universities teach more than 45,000 students
· Sheffield College is the largest further education college in Europe.
...Think of the city where you would really like to work… Sheffield
www.sheffield.gov.uk
Benefits of Working for Sheffield City Council
The terms and conditions of service contained in this pack detail the entitlements of all Sheffield City Council employees. There are however a large number of other benefits available to staff choosing to work in Children’s Social Care Services.
Annual Leave
The basic annual leave entitlement is 25 days (rising to 30 after 5 years continuous service) and the 8 public holidays. If you have 5 years continuous service with another Local Authority then when you move to Sheffield your additional leave entitlement will be maintained.
Flexible Working
A flexible working scheme operates within Children’s Social Services. This allows you greater flexibility as to when you start and leave work. If you sometimes need to work outside of core hours then you will be paid for this work.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
We are committed to the professional development of our staff. We have an established programme of CPD which is linked to re-registration requirements, progression and career pathways. We are currently developing a “Sheffield Guarantee for Social Care” which provides career pathways and prescribed development activity to enable you to develop and progress your career. Our CPD programme currently incorporates post qualifying opportunities, a comprehensive programme of in-house training, multi-agency practice seminars, research seminars and attendance at external conferences. More information on this is contained in the “Continuous Professional Development for Social Workers” section of this information pack.
Learning Organisation
We are committed to continuous improvement and our service is a founder member of Research in Practice (RIP), a network of agencies that promotes the use of research evidence children’s social care. We were also one of the first Local Authority Social Care Service’s to act as a practice partner with the Social Care institutes for Excellence (SCLE) and this has involved managers and teams testing out new practice guidance and undertaking action research.
Studying for Approved Qualifications and Study Leave
If you are studying for a qualification, which is relevant to your job at the Council, you may be eligible to some paid time off, with agreement from your line manager. This is dependent on a number of factors, and you will need to discuss your particular circumstances with your line manager.
Confidential Counselling and Support Service Sheffield
Children and Families Social Care Services has paid for employees to have free and unlimited access to this service provided by an independent company.