Job Introduction
Are you a social worker? Do you enjoy supporting social work students? Looking for a new challenge?
Then you may be interested in being a Consultant Social Worker, employed by Staffordshire County Council, running a Frontline Integrated Learning & Practice Hub in Stafford from September 2024. This is a 12 month fixed term or secondment opportunity and will be a grade 10 post, where you will oversee a Unit of five social work students. You will be supported by a Frontline Practice Tutor and have access to an excellent training package with Frontline. This is a brilliant development opportunity and speaking from personal experience, was one of the best roles I have held in my social work career so far.
What is Frontline?
Frontline is England’s largest social work charity. Everything we do aims to make life better for children who need a social worker, to help keep them safe from harm and to give them every possible chance to fulfil their potential. We do this through developing excellent social work practice, leadership and innovation.
One of the ways we make this happen is by recruiting and teaching a new, diverse generation of social workers specialising in child protection to join our Frontline programme. The programme is a three-year social work training programme for graduates and career changers.
How to apply:
1. Complete an application form: follow this link to complete an online application form
2. Anonymous scoring: the panel, which includes a representative from Frontline and the local authority, will anonymously score the applications. These scores will be carried forward and considered in the overall hiring decision, should you be progressed to the next stage.
3. Attend an interview: if shortlisted, you will be asked to complete a role play and interview.
If you have any questions about the application process or the role, please contact Liz Fuller at liz.fuller@staffordshire.gov.uk. You can also visit our FAQs page for more information.
Main Responsibility
What is a Consultant Social Worker?
The Consultant Social Worker (CSW) role is pivotal to the participants’ first year on the programme. Each CSW is responsible for five participants who are undertaking their Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work. CSWs work with participants using a practice hub model approach – a systemic practice model for working with families, with cases managed through weekly hub meetings. These meetings provide a dynamic learning environment and a reflective space to think systemically about the cases in the hub.
The role offers those who wish to remain in practice the opportunity to do so alongside the chance to take on supervisory and management responsibility for a small team. For more information about the exact responsibilities of a CSW, please see the CSW job pack.
What will I get from the role?
The Consultant Social Worker position offers the opportunity to:
- Step up to a management-level role without leaving practice.
- Access to a high-quality systemic training programme.
- Demonstrate through a portfolio of work that you meet the Practice Educator Professional Standards (Stage 2).
- Receive support and mentoring from one of Frontline's practice tutors.
- Influence and shape practice, and practice education, across your local authority.
The Ideal Candidate
You need to be a qualified registered social worker with post qualifying experience in Children & Families services.
You will have had previous experience of supporting a social work student and either hold your Practice Educator Award or willing to complete on being successful in your application
About Staffordshire County Council
We are no ordinary county council:
Our Values:
The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.
Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:
We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.
We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.
Our benefits:
We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire
Our recruitment process:
As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities
As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.
As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.
