The job itself

The East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Children’s Services have been rated GOOD by Ofsted following our recent ILACS inspection. Since the last inspection in 2019, the leadership team has made significant and sustained changes in all the practice and leadership areas identified for improvement. Through extensive engagement with external partners and scrutineers, the improvements in the service mean that children and young people in East Riding receive a timely and effective response and intervention when they need it. Senior leaders and councillors are clear about what their strengths are and what still needs to be improved in service delivery, and their self-evaluation is accurate. They have ambitious plans and have secured significant investment to develop their services further as part of their continuous improvement journey. Senior leaders lead by example, and this has supported practitioners to embed the relational model of practice with the families they work with.

A rare opportunity has become available to work within the Anlaby strengthening and supporting team.

Our social work teams are busy, and the role of Advanced Social Worker is a vital one when it comes to offering help and support to children, young people and families that need it and to our less experienced social workers. Social workers in our Strengthening and Supporting Families teams deliver statutory social work to children and their families ranging from Child in Need plans through to Adoption. The role offers the opportunity for both personal and professional development and you will have the opportunity to set the standard in a developing and growing our practice system to ensure that we achieve the best outcomes for children, young people and their families.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council is an innovative Local Authority which constantly strives to improve the standard of services provided to children, families and young people in our area. Our vision is to ensure that vulnerable children and young people receive excellent social work services to keep them safe and to make sure they reach their full potential. We are on a fast paced and ambitious transformation programme which is improving the experience of children in need of our services. We have come a long way on our improvement journey, supported by the Council’s total commitment to better children’s outcomes.

The base for the team is at Anlaby Family Centre and the role consists of hybrid working.

The right candidate

We are looking for an energetic, creative and experienced social workers who can demonstrate tenacity and enthusiasm in making a positive difference to the lives of children and young people. You will have proven ability of supporting less experienced social workers and will be able to evidence that you meet the criteria of Advanced Social Worker at grade 11.

You will have an in depth understanding and experience of working with children, young people and their networks and the experiences of working within a children’s social care setting, as well as a thorough knowledge of legislative frameworks and demonstrable commitment to the values of family involvement, relational approaches and empowerment.

In East Riding we really value positive relationships. Therefore, it is essential that the post holder is able to work relationally with others with a flexible and adaptable approach – always demonstrating their commitment to working to the highest possible standards whilst remaining at all times child centred.You will have excellent written and oral communication skills which will enable you to prepare clear, analytical and coherent reports on work undertaken.

You will be able to demonstrate a high level of motivation and the ability to work independently, with skills in working within timescales and with conflicting priorities.

Why work for East Riding?

We really value our social workers, and it is our fundamental belief that our staff are the most important asset in fulfilling our responsibility to provide a quality service to children, young people and their families. We therefore want to invest in you and your development, for advanced social workers this means having the opportunity to develop specialist skills, support to become a practice educator/assessor and ongoing support and training when in this role, a developing aspiring managers programme for those who want to develop into leadership and management roles, and support to develop your coaching and mentoring skills. We care about your career and will help you to identify your own goals and work with you to support you to achieve that within East Riding.

Our social workers and practitioners describe East Riding as ‘a family’; we really value our relationships with each other, with the families we support, and our partner agencies. We offer flexible working approaches because we want you to be able to enjoy your own family time and we know that this is important to our staff. We listen to what our social workers and practitioners are telling us and work hard to respond and make a difference – in East Riding we are so committed to this that we have a Principal Social Worker for those who are social work qualified and a Principal Practice Lead for our practitioners who are not, who champion the frontline voice across the service.

Other benefits of being a social worker in East Riding include:

• Social Work England fees reimbursed

• Licence for Community Care Inform to support with evidence-based practice and CPD

• Regular reflective supervision with a focus on your wellbeing, your development, and what is working well

• Flexible working options

• Christmas to New Year shut down – working arrangements are on a rota basis with additional time paid or time off in lieu

• Strong management support at all levels

• A service wide commitment to celebrating best practice and practice strengths

• A service wide commitment to promoting social work wellbeing and support

Take a look at our recruitment web pages and our Children’s Social Care information page for a full range of benefits and support.

Our model of practice

Stronger Together: ‘You can, I can, We can’

We have created a bespoke practice model that reflects and connects our vision, our value base and our behaviour as one East Riding of Yorkshire approach to working with children, young people and their families, which is nurtured and grown from within East Riding of Yorkshire CYPSSS and owned by our workforce.

We remain committed to Signs of Safety as a practice framework, but this is set within a much wider, values based, model of practice that clearly connects Signs of Safety with the East Riding value base, and our overall approach to making and sustaining relationships with children, families and communities. Our Stronger Together approach is strengths based, solution-focussed, and relational recognising that the very best work with families takes place within the context of excellent, collaborative relationships.

A well embedded model ensures we all have something to centre our practice on so that, while the work may be different, all of our teams are grounded in the same values, beliefs, theories and approaches. Having a well-developed practice model helps to create a common language for the service and enables everyone to understand how we go about doing the right things, in the right way and for the right reasons for children and their families.

Other important information

East Riding of Yorkshire Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and is pursuing equality of opportunity in employment.

These posts are subject to an enhanced DBS Check.