CAMHS Senior Social Worker

This role has a starting salary of £46,399 per annum based on a 36-hour working week.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Mental Health Focused Senior Social Worker to join our fantastic Surrey Looked After Children service.

Rewards and Benefits:

• 26 days' holiday, rising to 28 days after 2 years' service and 30 days after 5 years' service
• Option to buy up to 10 days of additional annual leave
• An extensive Employee Assistance Programme to support health and wellbeing
• Up to 5 days of carer's leave per year
• Paternity, adoption and dependants leave
• A generous local government salary related pension
• Lifestyle discounts including gym, travel, shopping and many more
• 2 paid volunteering days per year
• Learning and development hub where you can access a wealth of resources

About the Role

As a member of the Children Looked After Team, your role will be to support children living with relatives, friends, foster families, perspective adopters, or older children living in children's homes and semi-independent units where they have existing or emerging mental health difficulties. You will build sustainable relationships with children and young people to support them to achieve and maintain positive mental health.

Through regular visits, you will work directly with children, young people and their carers, assessing their mental health needs, providing direct interventions and strategies to manage in times of crisis alongside liaising with mental health services when escalating to Tier 4 services. You will work alongside the team around the child, including families, carers, social workers, health and education workers to ensure our corporate parenting duties are fulfilled.

You will be supported in this challenging role with regular supervision and consultations with our Mental Health Focused Social Worker. You will also find support by working alongside other social workers, family support workers and partnership organisations such as Health Services, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (New Leaf), Independent Reviewing Officers and carers.

As a Mental Health Focused Senior Social Worker in the Children Looked After team you will contribute to the delivery of multi-agency CAMHS for children and young people with complex mental health needs, bringing a social care perspective to working with children who need support with their mental health.

You will contribute to the development of reflective and systemic thinking within Children's Services, offering a mentoring role around the identification and appropriate treatment pathways for children experiencing emotional and mental health difficulties. Supporting and protecting children and young people with mental health difficulties and their families will be at the heart of all you do by providing a range of interventions including:

• Consultation
• Reflection
• Joint working with children
• Participation in case reviews
• Assessment of need
• Mental health assessments
• Intervention

You will also attend statutory meetings in relation to children where your involvement would be beneficial.

Shortlisting Criteria

To be considered for shortlisting for this role, your application will clearly evidence the following:

• You are a qualified social worker, registered with Social Work England
• Good communication & engagement skills to ensure that the Mental Health Focused Senior Social Worker service operates in a safe and efficient way, as part of the whole system of partnership and multi-agency working
• Evidence of effective partnership working to enable you to establish and promote positive key relationships
• A minimum of two years therapeutic intervention experience or training in this area to enable you to deliver effective 1-1 therapeutic interventions to young people

Surrey has both urban and rural areas and social workers will be expected to have a valid driving licence to drive in the UK, access to a vehicle and be willing to travel across a wide geographical area.

The job advert closes at 23:59 on Sunday 11th May 2025 with interviews to follow.

We look forward to receiving your application, please click on the apply online button below to submit.

An enhanced DBS 'Disclosure and Barring Service' check for regulated activity and the Children's and Adults' Barred List checks will be required for this role.

Our Commitment

Surrey County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. A guaranteed interview will be offered to all disabled applications where:

• The candidate has evidenced the minimum criteria for the role through their application
• The candidate has chosen to share that they have a disability on the application form

We want to be an inclusive and diverse employer reflecting the community we serve and particularly welcome applications from all underrepresented groups.