The job itself

East Riding of Yorkshire Council's 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 of 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 the 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 great and exciting opportunity has arisen within the Participation, Innovation, and Improvement portfolio for an experienced social worker/manager to join the service in the role of Independent Reviewing Officer responding specifically to the needs of children and young people subject to Child in Need Plans and Supervision Orders.

This newly created role forms part of our continued improvement activity in driving strength based, relational and collaborative practice in our work with children, young people and their networks. The role is currently temporary for one-year and forms part of a pilot as we progress our Sector Lead Improvement work with Essex County Council in respect to our Independent Safeguarding and Reviewing activity. This newly created post will sit within our Quality of Practice service and will be dual lined managed by the Quality of Practice Manager (for the Child in Need activity) and the Independent Safeguarding and Reviewing Manager (for Supervision Order activity).

The role will primarily deliver a supportive quality of practice offer and work in a supportive approach with our social work teams and partner agencies such as the Police and Health colleagues to ensure that the needs of children and young people subject to Child in Need planning and Supervision Orders are robustly met.

The priorities of the Independent Reviewing Officer within this role are:

• To support in a consultative approach the social work service to develop and implement robust Child in Need plans.
• To support in a consultative approach the social work service in the delivery of robust and effective Child in Need meetings to ensure the progression of Child in Need plans in a timely way.
• To support in a consultative approach the social work service and the Early Help and Prevention service transition children and young people effectively from statutory services to early help interventions.
• To implement the Quality of Practice Framework to drive up the practice for those children and young people subject to Child in Need Plans within the social work service through a high supportive and high challenging relational based approach systematically with the Team Managers and Area Managers.
• To provide the Senior Leadership Team with analytical information and reports around Child in Need activity and Supervision Order activity within the service as evidence through the Quality of Practice Framework activity.
• To support the social work service to develop and implement robust plans to support those children and young people subject to Supervision Orders.
• To review the effectiveness of those plans for children and young people subject to Supervision Orders.
• To support the wider partnership in the delivery of services to support children and young people subject to Child in Need plans and Supervision Orders.

These posts are part of a wider commitment by the Children, Families and Schools Directorate to support the practice system to deliver impact and focused outcomes for our children, young people and their networks via building a sustainable foundation of support to our holistic workforce. This is a great opportunity to be part of an aspirational and forward-thinking Portfolio with a priority of supporting those children, young people and their families that are subject to Child in Need plans and/or Supervision Orders.

The Office Base for this role will be County Hall, Beverley, although you will work across the East Riding of Yorkshire footprint, alongside the Heads of Service within the service. Working arrangements will be hybrid and working days are Monday to Friday.

Our model

‘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 will be set within a much wider, values based, model of practice that clearly connects Signs of Safety much more clearly with the East Riding value base, and our overall approach to making and sustaining relationships with children, families, and communities.

Without a well embedded model, there is nothing to centre our practice on to ensure that, while the work may be different, all 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.

The right candidate

You will contribute to the Quality of Practice agenda within the Directorate to help embed and promote a culture that leads to high quality and impact focused outcomes for children, young people and their families in East Riding of Yorkshire.

You will be required to work with service leads, front line managers and front-line practitioners to agreed outcome focused requirements in driving up practice across CYPSSS.

You will demonstrate good experience of front-line practice, within a children’s social work service with an ability to identify what good practice looks like.

You will have advanced working knowledge of childcare legislative framework, strength based and restorative based approaches, as well as relational based practice.

You will have great attention to detail and the ability to interrogate and analyse complex information with good accuracy, including an ability to critically evaluate children and young people’s lived experience so that support can be provided to ensure interventions are outcome and impacted focused.

You will need to be social work qualified and have strong experience of social work practice and experience of developing others, including evidence of a practice educator/practice assessor qualification (or willingness to achieve within 1 year) and demonstrable commitment to your own professional development.

We are a small team and positive relationships are valued. You will also be working with the teams across our service and therefore, it is essential that the post holder is able to work effectively with others with a flexible and adaptable approach in a relational based approach.

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.

If you have all of these qualities, have the right value base, and are an innovative leader, then what are you waiting for? Apply now and make a difference.