About the role
We are offering a Social Worker the opportunity to join our team on a fixed term contract until the end of March 2025. You must be a qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England to apply for this role. This role is different from frontline statutory work and offers a unique experience for skill development within a specialist team.
This is a rolling campaign, and we will review applications daily so please don't wait to apply, as we will close the advert once we find an appointable candidate!
The Care Home Support Team have enjoyed much success offering a fresh approach to supporting Care Homes, Nursing Homes and Supported Living settings across Cambridgeshire and are now looking to start working with domiciliary care providers.
The team works with Home Managers to understand the actions that are required, implement the necessary changes and helps to embed a positive culture amongst staff within the home. The support is flexible, intensive and preventative. We work in partnership with the provider, our internal Contracts team, the ICB and other agencies to ensure effective and sustained change and delivery of high-quality care to the residents.
The Care Home Support Team is an evolving team; we have the unique opportunity to be creative in our practice and shape the way in which we deliver support to providers. The team has a strong emphasis on Social Work values and best practice and ensures Social Workers have dedicated time and space for reflection and learning.
This role is very different from traditional Social Work positions, and we would value the opportunity to discuss what the team does and how it works in an informal chat. Team Manager Lucy Roberts is waiting to hear from you, and we recommend getting in touch. Lucy can be contacted on 07500 099685 or at Lucy.Roberts@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
What will you be doing?
As a part of the team, you will be liaising with other professionals and teams initially to identify providers who require support. You will be visiting providers to gauge what support is required and working with them around how best to meet the agreed outcomes. You will produce holistic evidence-based reports identifying both positive aspect of their practice as well as areas for improvement. You will then work with the provider towards improving their practice; this may include providing practical support sessions, signposting to other agencies, and utilising their own internal quality teams to support them. We review outcomes as and when required.
You will work hard to build and maintain relationships with providers as this is the bedrock of implementing sustainable change.
Our team works closely with our internal learning and development team to ensure that the team supports homes to embed learning at the point it takes place as we are able to offer mentoring and practical sessions to reinforce learning.
You will join the team in regular reflective practice sessions and actively take a role in gathering feedback from providers to improve the service and support offered.
About you
You must be a qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England.
Due to the specialist nature of the team, we value applications from a range of areas. We value skills and experience that will enhance the established team and strengthen it.
The successful applicant will need to have excellent communication and listening skills, be flexible in their approach have a real desire to promote sustainable change for people in receipt of care.
As a team, we are often asked to provide support for areas that are new to us, and as such we require you to be able to be flexible in your approach.
The successful candidate will need to be able to travel independently between locations within Cambridgeshire as the team work countywide.
For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description and Person Specification.
Our benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:
- Flexible and creative working arrangements
- 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
For our Social Workers, we offer more specific benefits like:
- Generous annual leave provision (28 days, plus bank holidays)
- A supportive management team that will champion your learning and development
- Employee Assistance Programme – access to free support 24 hours a day
- Payment for business mileage expenses (45p per mile)
- Plus, 6 days of protected time each year to enable our Social Workers to maintain their Continuous Professional Development.
Please read our benefits brochure attached for more information.
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.