Children's Assessment and Recruitment Team Manager, Fostering
Posted 10/07/2024 by Devon County Council
Full Time - 37.5 hours per week
Make an impact where it matters the most. – Children's Social Work in Devon.
About us
Fostering Devon provides in-house fostering families that offer a stable and consistent experience of family life to children and young people. The service aims to train and develop foster carers to deliver therapeutic parenting to heal traumatised children and young people. The fostering service supports and contributes to this mission by providing an effective, efficiently managed, high-quality foster care service within available resources. It meets the needs of children identified through assessment planning and review stages and aims to ensure the best possible outcomes for children in foster care.
Our Fostering Service is developing and on an improvement journey. With a highly successful recruitment team, skilled therapeutic support to foster carers and well-resourced and experienced social workers, our foster carers, children and young people are supported to reach their potential.
About the role
As the Team Manager for the Assessment and Recruitment Team, you will have responsibility for the assessment and approval of high-quality foster carers to join the Fostering Devon service. You will work closely with the South West Hub – the regionalised front door service to recruit foster families across Devon and the South West. You will supervise staff who are supporting their newly approved foster cares for the first year of their fostering journey.
Your practice will be supported as you join a strong management group dedicated to promoting positive change. With your team you will ensure that high quality assessments are delivered to exacting targets. As someone who knows what good foster care looks like, with your considerable knowledge and experience, you will oversee the work undertaken by the team and seek every opportunity to build on the success of the service and recruit more carers. You’ll allocate, Quality Assure and monitor work, as well as supervise and monitor the progress and professional development of each member of your team.
You will be responsible for ensuring high quality and timely assessments to provide high quality carers for our most vulnerable children in Devon. You will ensure our foster carers are assessed as being able to provide the care that looked after children need to enable them to be kept safe, maximises their potential, achieves permanence and leads to a successful transition to adulthood. You will work with your Team Manager colleagues in the county to ensure that every Devon child, no matter where they live, receives quality care in a family setting.
About you
Like us, you’ll be passionate about improving children’s life chances and outcomes. As an experienced qualified social worker with an energy and enthusiasm for managing people and services, you will be able to demonstrate success in the management of complex situations. Having gained some supervisory or management experience, you will be used to providing inspirational leadership and effective performance management.
You already know how to enable staff to achieve their potential.
You will be committed to reflective and restorative practice and know how to energise, motivate, and challenge practitioners. You will have gained some experience of performance and budget management and will understand how to balance the availability of resources with the best possible outcomes for children and their families. A clear communicator and attentive listener, you are quick to understand, empathise and respond appropriately to the needs of your team.
We are looking for people who are outward looking, strong in partnership working, think creatively to find effective solutions to situations as they happen and are ready to try new things.
Personal and professional rewards
In return, we will recognise and reward the vital contribution you make and just as importantly, we will support you to grow and develop with us.
Through individual and team supervision to support reflective practice, and effective locally based administrative support, we aim to enable you to be the best leader, manager, mentor and role model you can be.
Our leadership and management development pathway offers a structured approach to your development and supports you to achieve the expected outcomes within the knowledge and skills framework.
We are also committed to your professional development and, as part of this, expect you to complete post-qualification training as well as other forms of continuous professional development.
What you’ll get in return
In return for the vital contribution that you make, we have some fantastic employee benefits available, including:
- Generous annual leave, & the ability to purchase additional annual leave.
- Free onsite parking.
- Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee well-being services.
- We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
- Membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme.
- Discounts at over 900 national & local high street retailers through our benefits platform.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice scheme.
If you are looking to move to Devon, subject to qualifying conditions, we offer a generous relocation allowance. There has never been a better time to make the move!
Please click Apply Now for further information.
Applications close on the 11th August 2024. Successful shortlisted candidates will be contacted to arrange interview dates.
For more information about Working for Devon please visit our Working for Devon page.
- DCC embraces the positive benefits of a diverse workforce and is committed to providing an environment that is inclusive and safe. We welcome applications from people who share our commitment to stop discrimination, challenge inequality and promote diversity across Devon. More information can be found on our Equality and Diversity webpages.
- Happy to Talk Flexible Working - The Council offers flexible working arrangements in terms of when and where people work e.g. hybrid working, part-time, condensed hours etc.
- We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
- This role requires the ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence and fluency in English.
- Personal data we collect from you will be processed in accordance with the Applicant privacy notice.
- For more information about Working for Devon please visit our Working for Devon page.
- This role requires a DBS disclosure.
- Type:
- Permanent
- Contract Length:
- N/A
- Contact Name:
- Login or register to view
- Job Reference:
- REQ006616
- Job ID:
- 221979481
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