Slough Council - ATM - Child Sexual Exploitation

Posted 07 June 2021
Salary £40 - £41 per hour
LocationSlough
Job type Temporary
Discipline Social Care
ReferenceLORNA_1623069496
Contact NameLorna Burner

Job description

As part of the Trust's improvement journey it recognises Slough has a commitment to build on their delivery of services to young people and families at risk of exploitation. The exploitation service is set to incorporate a social work team to provide robust, timely and specialist intervention to children, young people and families at risk of violence, vulnerability and exploitation. The focus will be on adolescents whereby extra familial harm has been identified.

The service will provide a wraparound approach to intervention to support and address exploitation and extra familial harm in all its forms. In doing so, all staff will be expected to promote, deliver and embrace the Trust's values - Child focussed, Honest and respectful, Improving constantly, Looking ahead and Delivering together to both their team and peers to help deliver our vision of making our children safe, secure and successful.

This role will act as the lead for exploitation, working in close partnership with Thames Valley Police and other relevant multi-agency partners to disrupt and prevent the exploitation of children and young people in Slough.

The focused areas of work include

  • Child sexual exploitation and abuse, including online cyber abuse
  • Criminal exploitation, including County Lines (Drugs)
  • Children who are missing from home or care
  • Modern slavery and human trafficking

Be accountable for the day to day management of staff within the contextual safeguarding team consisting of senior social workers, social workers, project support and the matrix management of individuals located in other organisations, to safeguard and promote the welfare of vulnerable and complex children and young people in Slough whilst effectively managing risk.

Ensure key performance targets as they apply to the team, the service and Slough Children First are met.

Carry out this role in a collaborative manner that promotes equality of opportunity and joint working with other teams across Slough Children First and partners, while challenging and supporting the team to ensure timely and suitable outcomes for children and young people and embedding the organisation's values into the work of the team and peers.

Use all multi disciplinary resources available to ensure the quality of practice with children, young people and families is of a consistently high quality, is cost effective and that quality service standards are met.

Main Accountabilities

  • As a member of the Trust's management team, provide day to day management of the team, providing appropriate support and challenge to ensure the delivery of high quality services that safeguard the welfare of complex children and young people.
  • Make effective day to day use of all available professional resources and use a range of theoretical, evidence based and practical approaches to develop and implement effective interventions and support for children and young people at risk of extra familial harm, including contextual safeguarding, exploitation and missing.
  • Work with colleagues and partners to deliver accessible and effective services focused on contextual safeguarding and exploitation, empowering parents and carers to develop and maintain safe parenting practices to achieve outcomes for children and young people and ensuring return home interviews are conducted where applicable
  • Provide specialist advice and support across the children's workforce on appropriate interagency responses to contextual safeguarding, exploitation, missing and extra familial harm in accordance with LSCB procedures.
  • Ensure information gathered from vulnerable children and young people is used to protect individuals, working closely with police to ensure information sharing practice is effective across partners and other local authorities, and contributes to the identification of unmet local need and effective multi-agency responses.
  • Continue to maintain and develop the data set of children and young who have been, or are at risk of exploitation.
  • Chair meetings to a high standard, holding social workers to account for the children and young people discussed, attending and co-ordinating where required other relevant meetings related to contextual safeguarding, exploitation and missing children and young people.
  • Support the Team Manager in the distribution of caseloads of the contextual safeguarding team to ensure all children and young person's needs are met appropriately.
  • Support and challenge the team in the completion of assessments, plans and interventions based on identified needs, ensuring at each point risk is evaluated, decisions and management oversight are recorded on the case file and issues or concerns are escalated to the Team Manager to address.
  • Supervise social workers and non qualified staff in the team as per the supervision policy, providing day to day supervision to a high standard.
  • Lead group supervision to a high standard ensuring all team members are aware of progress on cases.
  • Understand and use what performance information and audit outcomes are saying to positively impact on individual cases and support staff development.
  • Promote supportive environments to build positive and meaningful relationships with complex children and young people and their families, and promote the seeking and understanding of young people's needs and views to inform local strategic and practice developments in relation to contextual safeguarding.
  • Participate in quality assurance activities to support professional development of staff and improve the consistency of practice.
  • Support the Team Manager to tackle under-performance, sickness absence and conduct both informally and formally and within the Trust's policy frameworks.
  • Develop and maintain own professional links and leads with partner agencies and the voluntary sector and support those of the Team Manager.
  • Maintain own professional development through training and other suitable mechanisms, learning from local, regional and national best practice to tackle child exploitation, coaching and mentoring within the Team, and across the organisation as required.

If you are interested in this role please send your updated CV in the first instance.