Staying Close Team Manager, Children's Social Care
Gloucestershire
This is a Gloucestershire County Council job.
- Job Title: Staying Close Team Manager, Children's Social Care
- Job Location: 92-96 Westgate Street
- Salary: £50,788 - £52,805 per annum
- Hours per Week: 37
- Contract Type: Fixed Term
- Duration: Until March 2026
- Closing Date: 01/12/2024
- Job Requisition Number: 10405
- This post is open to job share
We are currently recruiting for a Team Manager to help lead our team of 5 Leaving Care Personal Advisers in our Staying Close team which is pilot in Gloucestershire. This forms part of our wider Leaving Care Service. This role is a fixed term contract until March 2026.
Our Staying Close pilot aims to support young people leaving care to reach their full potential within communities where they enjoy the strongest relationships and
connections.
Reward and support
For all your hard work, you will receive the following:
• £50,788 - £52,805 per annum, subject to experience
• £5,000 welcome payment*
• £2,000 annual retention payment*
• flexible and agile working opportunities
• 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service
• option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year
• family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
• supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone.
• an in-house Occupational Health service
• employee discount scheme
• cycle to work scheme
• salary sacrifice green car scheme (T&Cs apply)
• links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
• career development and qualification opportunities
• access to our Social Work Academy
Right child, right support, right time, every time
We are working together to support families and communities to give every child the best chance of a happy and rewarding life, especially those who need more help.
Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Social Work Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award-winning workforce.
Gloucestershire Children’s Services are improving. Our latest Ofsted inspection (February 2022) identified that:
‘Significant progress has been made in many areas of Gloucestershire’s children’s services… significant financial investment and the backing of political leaders, has led to improved services that are now more effective in meeting the needs of children and families’.
We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to join an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.
About the role
The role will be to manage a small team of Personal Advisers (PAs) to fulfil their role as Leaving Care PAs. The PAs will work with a reduced number of young people to allow them to focus additional time to develop strong relationships and offer more intensive support around preparing for independence, obtaining education, training or employment and moving towards independent accommodation. This reduced caseload will allow the team to also be part of innovative practice and to contribute to the development of materials and systems to support Staying Close into the future.
You will work closely with the project co-ordinator and partners supporting young people with their health, education, training or employment, accommodation and relationships.
About you
As a Team Manager, we’ll ask you to lead and support a team of leaving care PAs to deliver services of the highest quality. Ensuring statutory duties and best practice is followed, you’ll develop a team plan in line with Children’s Services strategic objectives and provide management oversight on all cases with a clear understanding of risk.
Your role will focus on managing the team’s workflow and quality assuring work through observations, reflective supervision and GCC’s quality assurance framework, as well as contributing towards the development of the framework itself. Through building positive relationships with colleagues within both the service and partner agencies, you will ensure we are able to provide support and protection for vulnerable children and young people across the County.
As well as your experience as a frontline social worker, there are some things we require of you to be successfully appointed to this post:
• Social Work England registration
• a recognised qualification in Social Work
• to have passed your Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE)
• a full driving licence and willingness to drive
• DBS clearance
How to apply
For an informal chat about this role, please email David.Stewart@gloucestershire.gov.uk with your name, number and what you wish to discuss.
*Please note, all our retention payments are non-contractual, pro rata for part-time staff and subject to National Insurance and tax deductions.
We reserve the right to close an advertisement earlier than the stated closing date if we receive a suitable amount of applications.
Additional Information
To access the Job Profile for this role, please follow the link below:-
This position is subject to a DBS check.
Gloucestershire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people or vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire’s diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential.
It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a ‘customer facing role’ must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English.
Hybrid working arrangements are available for the majority of our roles, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice, with a mix of both remote and office working.
Under the terms of our Safer Recruitment Policy, if you are invited to interview, we will take up safeguarding references prior to your interview to understand your suitability to work with vulnerable children. These references will then be discussed in your interview. Please give details of at least two referees, one of whom must be your present and/or last employer and the other from a previous employer(s). These will need to cover the last three years of employment/education. In the case of applicants leaving full time education or not having worked since doing so, the Head of School, College or University should be one of the named referees. We do not accept references from friends or family members or workplace colleagues (who are not more senior). To ensure we process your application in a speedy and efficient way, we will contact your referees by DocuSign. Where appropriate, please inform them of your application.