Senior Social Worker Practitioner

Job responsibilities

Job Summary:All Senior Social Workers must be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).Senior Social Workers will promote, lead and act in accordance with the principles of personalisation, ensuring that they are working to promote wellbeing, and enabling individuals rights to choice and control. In doing so they will carry out assessments of need, plan and deliver services and review outcomes with the individual, their personal support networks and support providers.Senior Social Worker will ensure that practice within their teams is responsive, inclusive and community based with a clear focus on outcomes. They will bring their professional expertise to their work with complex cases and contribute their perspectives to the multi-disciplinary team.As a Senior Social Worker you will act as a champion and leader of social care within a locality/quadrant. You will be expected to give robust, consistent expert social care practice advice in partnership with other specialist senior social care colleagues. You will reinforce the need to deliver high quality, cost effective social care services to service users and their carers focused on the principles of choice, control and independence, as well as ensuring their safety. You will have a small caseload of the most complex cases and, as an AMHP, you will provide advice, support and supervision to other AMHPs.Partnership working is a key component of this post both within and outside the Trust and you will need to be innovative in ensuring that there is a range of appropriate services locally to support individual recovery journeys.You will be expected to work in partnership with service users and carers so that they can be empowered, and services can be improved as a result of feedback of their experiences.

For a more detailed description, please see attached JD and PS.

KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE

Essential

• An appropriate professional social work qualification
• Registration with General Social Care Council
• Education to degree level
• Masters Degree or equivalent training
• Approved Mental Health Professional training and qualification (or prepared to undertake training within a year of appointment)
• Relevant post-qualifying training for social workers

Desirable

• Other post-qualifying training e.g. CBT, family therapy
• Best Interests Assessment training

AREAS OF EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Stong post qualification experience with demonstrable evidence of excellent practice at a high level
• Extensive knowledge of legislation, statutory guidance, theory and policy in relation to relevant adult and children's social care.
• Experience of undertaking assessments,focused as personalisation, choice and control, and care planning Understanding and experience of personal budgets and direct payments
• Experience of supervising and mentoring staff
• Experience of multidisciplinary working and evidence of collaborative work
• Experience of partnership working with service users and carers, demonstrating dignity and respect particularly in very challenging situations
• Experience of work as Approved Mental Health Professional.

Desirable

• Experience of work as a Best Interests assessor

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Essential

• Excellent ability to communicate with a wide range of stakeholders including service users and carers, other professional colleagues, members of other organisations and local communities, verbally and in writing.
• Evidence of successful management of difficult meetings.
• Ability to manage highly sensitive information
• Experience of using electronic recording systems and ability to produce accurate, appropriate and timely reports

ANALYTICAL SKILLS

Essential

• Ability to analyse service user and carer information.
• Experience of undertaking small scale audits and surveys.

Desirable

• Understanding of basic research methods

DIVERSITY

Essential

• Demonstrable ability to working sensitively with diverse needs and environments
• Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice

PHYSICAL SKILLS

Essential

• Ability to visit and attend meetings at a variety of locations and environments Experience of using computer - PC
• literate to ECDL standard
• Able to travel between bases and offices, as required, using suitable mode of transport.

PHYSICAL EFFORT

Essential

• Ability to meet timescales and respond to crises and appropriate

MENTAL EFFORT

Essential

• Flexibility and ability to respond to a variety of tasks, and to prioritise own workload
• Ability to manage others and convey information which may be contentious sensitively so that it achieves required improvements and outcomes

EMOTIONAL EFFORT

Essential

• Ability to deal with distressing and sometimes aggressive behaviour of service users, carers and colleagues

GENERAL

Essential

• Experience of working in an integrated health and social care environment

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).