Practice Standards and Quality Officer

Job description

Job responsibilities

Are you a qualified and registered social worker? Do you enjoy working with colleagues across different service areas? Are you passionate about supporting the development of social work practice and making positive and sustainable changes?

If the answer to the above is 'Yes!'then the Practice Standards and Quality Team need you!

We have a rare and exciting opportunity available for the right person to join us as a Practice Standards and Quality Officer (Senior Social Worker) with a focus onMental Health Social Work.The role is offeredas a 12 month fixed term contract oras a 12 month secondment.

The Practice Standards and Quality Teamworks across Adult Social Care within Cambridgeshire County Council. The teams work is evidence based using information obtained through audits, case reviews and working with front line social care teams. Aspects of the teams activities include running social care practice workshops across the council, developing practice factsheets, staff guidance and newsletters, working with other areas of the council to provide a joined-up approach to social care, supporting the facilitation of huddles and working with others to develop best social care practice in the councils Adults Social Care.

The focus of this role is to work with our colleagues withinCambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust (CPFT) to build a picture of current social work practice, specifically in relation to our duties under the Care Act 2014.

The team is small but effective with a strong emphasis on social care values and good social care practice standards.

If you would like to discuss the role in more detail please contact Ali Keclik, Quality and Practice Manager on 07500 856 547.

Interviews will be held in person on 6th and 7th December 2023

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:

• Flexible working
• Flexible Bank Holidays
• A comprehensive wellbeing package
• Our Cambs Rewards employee discounts
• A comprehensive pension scheme
• IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network.
• Camweb our staff intranet helping to keep you informed
• An employee recognition scheme

For ourSocial Workers, we offer more specific benefits like:

• Generousannual leaveprovision (28 days, plus bank holidays)
• Asupportive management teamthat will champion your learning and development
• Employee Assistance Programme access to free support 24 hours a day
• Payment forbusiness mileage expenses(45p per mile)
• Apay progression schemeto enable our Social Workers to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills.
• Arelocation packageof up to £8000 for eligible candidates
• Plus, 6 days of protected time each year to enable our Social Workers to maintain theirContinuous Professional Development.

Please read ourbenefits brochureattached for more information.

Your day-to-day duties will include coordinating and undertaking a deep dive audit of Mental Health social work. This will include the completion of case audits, collating and analysing the resulting data, presenting findings to others, ensuring good practice is celebrated as well as drafting and implementing actions plans (as necessary). You will have a period of monitoring the ongoing audit activity where there is mental health social work involvement.

In order to complete this work, you will be working closely and collaboratively with the Quality and Practice manager, the Principal Social worker for Adults and CPFT social work managers to support the development of practice in the service.

You will have the opportunity to be involved at every level of adult social care operational teams and work with shared teams including our learning and development team, customer care team and business intelligence team.

Your line manager will be the Quality and Practice manager, but as a small and close team, you will receive daily support from all within the team, including regular opportunities to participate in team reflective sessions and support the wider work of the Practice Standards and Quality Team.

We are looking for an individual who is creative in thinking about how we deliver the best service to our communities and support our frontline staff in their roles and responsibilities.

You must be a qualified social worker, registered with Social Work England,have experience of social work with adults and be skilled at working with others.

We are a team whowork across service areas, and we work hard to form and maintain positive working relationships with our colleagues. A track record of positive partnership working is essential as well as excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.

It is important that you are able to demonstrate excellent planning, prioritisation and time management skills.

As the role involves quality assurance of practice, through the use of case audits, you must have an eye for detail and the ability to apply professional analysis and scrutiny to information. It is essential that you are skilled in using Microsoft Office 365 (Outlook, Excel, Word, Teams, One Drive) and social care case recording systems.

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description andPerson Specification.

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities.If you dont meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please dont be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers

Person Specification

General Requirements

Essential

• Please refer to job description above

Desirable

• Please refer to job description above

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.

Employer details

Employer name

Cambridgeshire County Council

Address

Huntingdon

PE29 3AD

Employer's website

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)