About the role
Are you a compassionate, emotionally intelligent and critically reflective social worker and practice educator, looking to take the next step in your career? This is an exciting time to join us in the Cambridgeshire Academy for Reaching Excellence (CARE), Children Social Care. CARE in Children Social Care, was launched in November 2023, with a vision and commitment to supporting learning and development of our current and future social work and social care colleagues. CARE is driving forward a culture change, where everyone feels valued and experiences kindness and compassion at work, with a focus on growing people and supporting colleagues to create a more stable workforce.
CARE is looking for 3 full-time Children Social Care Practice Development Leads, with extensive experience in social work practice, practice education and practice assessment, or willingness to undertake your PEPS qualification. You will have an exceptional understanding of how professional learning happens in the workplace and the elements of support that can help sustain this. You will have an understanding of project planning and quality assuring, with an analytical approach and strong communication skills, both verbal and written.
You will be joining a caring, vibrant and friendly team, and the wider Learning and Development Service, of around 40 colleagues.
You will be able to work flexibly from home, our Stanton House in Huntingdon, or our offices in various locations within Cambridgeshire. You will need to have a full driving license and access to a car and be able to travel independently within the county to meet with colleagues and deliver services.
We proud ourselves with being able to offer flexible working patterns, to allow everyone to effectively blend their work and life commitments. Please clearly outline in your personal statement what your preference would be.
For more information or to have a conversation about this opportunity, please contact Ramona Peiu, CARE manager, on ramona.peiu@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.
Interviews will take place on Thursday, 29th August 2024 and Friday, 30th August 2024, at Stanton House, Huntingdon, PE29 6XL.
What will you be doing?
These opportunities are permanent positions. As Practice Development Leads you will be leading, co-ordinating, teaching, supporting and assessing the professional development of a variety of colleagues within Children Social Care, from learners to existent and international colleagues, teams and services. You will be responsible for the creation, development, implementation and evaluation of a wide range of professional learning opportunities across Children Social Care. These opportunities, whether it be classroom or virtually based, 1:1 or group learning, coaching, mentoring, teaching, action learning or reflective supervision, would directly enhance the knowledge, skills, capabilities and attributes of social care colleagues. You will work in partnership with others to develop these opportunities in a collaborative, sustainable and participatory manner. This includes sharing and developing best practice with universities, experts by experience, apprenticeship providers, regional and county safeguarding partnership boards, national government, regional workforce consortia, as well as organisations within the private and voluntary sector.
About you
You will be an experienced social worker who inspires others and delivers change. You will have a passion and commitment for supporting and developing learners and existent social work and social care colleagues. You will advocate good to outstanding practice and enable colleagues to reflect on themselves and their practice in a learning environment, that would have a direct impact on their awareness, skills and knowledge, and the outcomes for the children, young people and families they serve.
Our benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…
- A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
- Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
- Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
- Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
- Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
- Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
- Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
- Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
- An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes
About us
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 don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t 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.
Attached documents
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