Independent Chair

What will you be doing?

Your work will involve developing relationships with children and their families, ensuring that the child’s voice is central to their care planning. You will chair multi-agency statutory child in care reviews, ensuring that the plans for children are aspirational, child-focussed and SMART.  Between reviews you will monitor the progress of the plans while you continue to build your direct relationships with children.

You will be managing a caseload of children ranging from newborn babies in care proceedings to young adults preparing to leave care.  The needs of the children and young people will vary, and your caseload will include some children with disabilities and some young people seeking asylum in the UK.  The ability to be able to see situations from different perspectives, and to understand the child’s view is therefore critical.

You will need to have the skills to identify areas of drift or delay for children, to communicate effectively with the multi-agency network, and to escalate any issues of drift or delay directly to senior managers where necessary.
 
This post requires an agile worker who is flexible, adaptable, and able to travel to meetings both in and out of county. The office base of the post-holder is negotiable as the service has bases in Wisbech, Huntingdon and Cambridge.

You will be supported in your role through regular 1:1 supervision and monthly team meetings.  

About you

We're looking for confident and dynamic individuals who enjoy making a difference and advocating for disadvantaged children. You need to be curious and able to spot things that others might not see, enjoy building relationships and like to explore possibilities.

You must:

• Be a qualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration
• Have at least five years post-qualifying experience of social work with children
• Have the ability to work from a variety of locations and travel both in and outside of the county’s borders independently

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

Our benefits

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

• Flexible and creative working arrangements, including agile working
• Generous annual leave entitlement and 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

As a Public Sector organisation, we are all about providing continuity and stability for both our employees and residents, especially in these challenging times when it is needed most.

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.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we believe benefits our employees, the organisation and our communities. 

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. 

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