Senior Practice Lead

We are looking for a Senior Practice Lead based at the Portal in Ellesmere Port.We strive to create a working environment where everyone has a sense of belonging and can be the best they can be. It is important to us that we have a diverse workforce, representative of the communities we work for. Here at Cheshire West and Chester Council we are leading the way with an innovative service approach to supporting young people experiencing significant mental health distress. Along with our colleagues at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, we have developed a first of its kind initiative called 'The Nook'. The Nook aims to support young people transitioning out of Tier 4 mental health provision, prevent admission and readmission to Tier 4 and prevent young people experiencing entry to Local Authority Care. The scheme will act as a gradual step down from Tier 4 inpatient setting, or a point of stabilisation to prevent escalation of needs, by providing a trauma informed support and intervention setting in a domestic property for a young person aged 12-17. The young person and their family will utilise this service together with wraparound support and intervention from social care and health staff. Targeted, evidence-based interventions with the young person and their family will build skills, resilience, and confidence before they transition, with outreach support, back to their family home. The successful candidate will be responsible for ensuring those young people being provided with support from The Nook receive a robust and needs led approach to their care. They will have management responsibility for the in and outreach support provided to young people within The Nook property and the family home. They will be responsible for ensuring that collaboration within the partnership works to provide services for young people that are both timely and relevant. The base for the role will be The Portal, Ellesmere Port. The Nook will form part of the already well-established Intervention Hub which provides services to children and their families with social worker involvement and children supported by child in need, child protection and looked after planning. As Senior Practice Lead for The Nook, you will be an integral part of the leadership team for the Intervention Hub and will be crucial to quality assurance, service delivery and ensuring there is a multi-agency response to young people accessing the Nook. The successful candidate will work in close collaboration with existing senior practice leads and the service manager. Some key responsibilities include: Management and supervisory responsibility for 8 Family Intervention Workers. Partnership working with health colleagues to ensure there is clinical oversight gained within the supervisory process to support practice within the service. Supporting service design as part of a multi-disciplinary team. Reviewing service performance against agreed indicators and implement and embed changes and developments alongside the Service Manager. Overseeing the workflow into the team. Providing direct support to team members with complex workloads, the facilitation of associated meetings and safeguarding responses. Being a key leader in relation to multi-disciplinary meetings with health colleagues. Being flexible with the existing practice manager group to support across the service. Responding to concerns and complaints that may be raised in a courteous and professional way. Working closely with HR and legal on a number of issues. As an employee of the local authority, you will have access to range of benefits including: Competitive salary Annual leave - you will receive 26 days annual leave per annum rising to 31 days after five years continuous Local Government service. Grow your own culture - we have a career progression structure to support your professional development. Working rewards - we have a variety of schemes available to employees which include; additional annual leave, care and cycle purchase scheme, home and electronics purchase scheme in addition to discounts at a wide range of gyms, high street and online retailers. Pension scheme - our Local Government Pension Scheme is a career average pension scheme with employee contributions of between 5.5% and 8.5% and the employer contribution currently of 23.8%. the scheme includes ill health and death in service benefits after two years membership. Employee assistance programme - 24 hours, seven day a week lifestyle support for when you or your family need a listening ear from a qualified advisor on a wide range of personal or work issues. Modern 'Hub' offices - bright positive and collaborative working spaces at 3 locations across the borough. Staff Networks - we have a wide range of staff networks to help create an inclusive work environment. As a senior practice lead, you will receive the following additional supports and opportunities: High quality supervision with your own personal development plan to support your career and learning aspirations. Supplementary clinical supervision from a health clinical lead to ensure education and training around trauma-based interventions and formulations. Involvement in the delivery of an innovative initiative in partnership with a multi-disciplinary team. Support to achieve a work life balance with flexible and remote working arrangements available, including up to date IT equipment and a smart mobile phone. High quality training and development opportunities. Experience a working environment with a strong reflective practice framework. Access to free parking at all our office locations. Our Children's Social Care workforce is passionate and committed to improving outcomes for children in our Authority by providing a consistent, high quality service to children and families, together with the support from a stable leadership and management team. We are committed to a culture of shared learning and development in which everyone has a part to play to ensure that our services to children and families focusses on positive outcomes. We have developed and continue to embed 'Our Way of Working' with our multi-agency partners to ensure improved collaboration and one common approach to our work with families using Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Informed Practice. Social workers are encouraged to work creatively in planning and decision-making with children and their families and our partner agencies to achieve positive outcomes and with a focus on prevention at every level. We are proud that Ofsted have rated us as one of the top performing Children's Services in the country, receiving overall "good" in our 2015 inspection and retaining "good" in our inspection in 2019. OFSTED has acknowledged that our children benefit from a stable and resilient workforce. We are approved as a 'Partner in Practice' with the Department of Education and won 'Overall council of the Year' and 'Best Innovation' awards in 2018. If your experience looks a little different from what we've identified and you think you can bring value to the role, we'd love to learn more about you. If you have any queries about this vacancy, please don't hesitate to contact: [email protected]