Social Worker - Integrated Adolescent Service

Role Responsibility

Do you recognise Adolescence as a difficult time? Do you have empathy for families of adolescents, who struggle to navigate the changes?

The Integrated Adolescent Service recognises that adolescents should be given a bespoke offer of support. Many of the young people we work with have experienced developmental trauma and disrupted attachments, resulting in them being vulnerable to extra familial harm.

We want professionals capable of bringing understanding and emotional intelligence to everything they do. The service promotes a practice philosophy which seeks to develop a secure trusting relationship to empower young people and their families, building on individual strengths, and helping them to develop strategies which support them to understand, manage and respond to the difficulties they face.

Our practitioners need to be resilient and persistent; be solution-focused; look past challenging behaviours; build positive relationships with adolescents and their carers, and to inspire young people to reach their potential. Each team has a mixture of newly qualified social workers, experienced practitioners and social work assistants. We all work together to support each other and there are regular social activities and away days for learning and development. We value that our staff are committed and often work above and beyond, we therefore offer a flexible approach to working including offices across the county, home working and flexible hours.

We have opportunities for experienced Social Workers to join our team. We want a practitioner who really cares about adolescents and who understands the impact of trauma, and how to respond to contextual harm.

Vacancies available

Adolescent Social Work South Team (covering Ashford, Folkestone and Dover) & Adolescent Social Work East Team (Covering Thanet and Canterbury).

About Us

AST are a specialist social work team within an Integrated Adolescent Service which includes, Adolescent Early Help.

AST offers intensive support to adolescents and their families to manage complex situations including extra familial harm and family conflict. AST focuses on young people who are at risk of being exploited. We work with young people facing a range of difficulties and challenges associated with the state of ‘adolescence’. We recognise that the more vulnerable the young person is because of the difficulties they experience, the greater the risk is that they may be exploited.

We offer co-working and co-location opportunities and we have excellent relationships with key partners including Housing, Education, Health and the Police.

Your role will involve providing intensive support, empowering young people and their families to develop effective long-term solutions to manage their family relationships and develop strategies to overcome the risks that adolescents face during this phase of their life.

Where it is not safe for young people to remain living at home we will continue to work with them and their families as well as their wider network to identify suitable safe alternatives.

We have invested heavily in our core offer to staff, including, strengths based approaches that are solution-focused alongside contextual safeguarding and trauma-informed practice, we operate under a Signs of Safety framework.

About You

With a degree in social work – CQSW, DipSW or equivalent – you must be registered with Social Work England and should have experiences of working with children and families. Your experience should cover systemic practice, and you will need an in-depth understanding of legislative and policy frameworks, along with a willingness to learn and develop as a practitioner; being a team player is essential in any social work team.

You will have excellent opportunities for professional development by managing a varied caseload working with adolescents and their families. We’ll support you to consolidate your skills and knowledge, assisting you to develop areas of specialist practice, including trauma-informed practice and contextual safeguarding. You’ll share your previous knowledge and experience with the team in a number of ways, including assisted fieldwork, case audits and reviews. In addition, you’ll contribute to working groups and multi-agency forums to develop new initiatives.

These roles are in area teams and require you to be mobile throughout a wide operational area You should note that public transport is rarely a viable option as your role will involve you transporting people and equipment to venues in very rural areas, often with limited public transport.

This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure Application to the Disclosure and Barring Service and to registration as a qualified Social Worker with Social Work England.

This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Contact Details

For more information about the role please contact Rebecca Charlton on Rebecca.Charlton@kent.gov.uk or Adrian Miles on adrian.miles@kent.gov.uk.

About The Company

Work that works for you and us - let’s talk flexibility!

KCC is committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the county’s working residents, encouraging applications from people of all ages, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds, faiths and those with caring responsibilities, and aspires to create an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves at work.

Please note – if you are interested, please apply as soon as possible as the closing date for this advert may be earlier than stated should a number of suitably qualified candidates apply.

Job Description & Person Specification

• Social Worker KR9