About the role
The Care Home Support Team offers a fresh approach to supporting Care Homes, Nursing Homes and Supported Living settings across Cambridgeshire. We work alongside Care Home managers, empowering them to find solutions to complex issues and coaching them through change management.
The team came into being post pandemic, in January 2021 and having enjoyed much success we are now starting to work with domiciliary care providers. We are offering three Social Workers the opportunity to join our team on a fixed term contract until the end of March 2025. The role is different from frontline statutory work and offers a unique experience for skill development within a specialist team.
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 a great team to be a part of; as 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. Within the team there is also dedicated time and space for reflection and learning.
For more information or an informal chat about this role contact Lucy Roberts, Team Manager 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
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)
- A pay progression scheme to enable our Social Workers to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills.
- A relocation package of up to £8000 for eligible candidates
- 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 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.