Job Introduction
Join our dedicated Children in Care Team at Milton Keynes City Council
Do you want to make a real difference in the lives of children and families? Do you thrive in a collaborative environment where your dedication and professional expertise are valued? If so, we have a brilliant opportunity to join our dynamic Children in Care team.
About us:
You’ll be joining a Team Manager, Deputy Managers, Senior Practitioners, Social Workers, Social Work Assistants, a Clinical Psychologist, Looked After Children’s Nurses, and a Primary Mental Health Worker. Together, we support children and young people who cannot remain with their families by providing foster care, adoption and residential care. We also work closely with the Leaving Care Service and Adult Social Care for young people transitioning to adulthood.
What we do:
Support and stability: Our goal is to offer stability and security, helping children in our care achieve their full potential.
Child-centred approach: We prioritise the needs of the child, ensuring decisions are made promptly to promote positive outcomes.
Direct and therapeutic work: Engage in Direct Work, Life Story Work, and Wishes and Feelings Work to help children recover from adversity and understand their circumstances.
Collaborative efforts: Work closely with various services to provide comprehensive support to children and young people.
Why Join Us?
Supportive environment: Comprehensive induction, mentoring and regular supervision, including clinical supervision.
Career development: Access to an established career framework and excellent development opportunities.
A flexible approach: Support for part-time work, job sharing, 9-day fortnights and annualised hours.
Competitive benefits: Attractive salary and benefits package.
Capped caseloads: Capped at 18 for social workers and 14 for Senior practitioners, as there’s an expectation Senior Practitioners will offer a supervisory role to less experienced members of the team and support the managers.
Our team is dedicated to making a significant impact on the lives of children and their families. We offer a challenging and rewarding work environment where your contributions are valued and make a real difference.
Ready to make a difference? Apply now and become a valued member of our Children in Care Service. There’s more about working in Children’s Social Care here: https://www.mkcounciljobs.org.uk/cs-care
We encourage and warmly welcome applications from social workers in all disciplines such as Adult Social Care and Mental Health Services.
Due to the nature of the work, the role requires local and longer-distance travel.
If you would like an informal discussion about the role, please email: Claire.fidler@milton-keynes.gov.uk Team Manager
This is a site-based role
Interviews for this role will be rolling from the 1 April 2025
Milton Keynes City Council is a modern and friendly place to work. Find out more about working with us here: www.mkcounciljobs.org.uk
Main Responsibility
Support and supervision: Ensure the team are receiving robust supervision and management oversight, in line with policy and procedures. Ensure children are receiving a high standard of care, through statutory visiting timeframes and care planning, in line with Care Planning regulations.
Creative interventions: Enable social workers to think creatively and provide a range of interventions appropriate to the needs of children and young people in our care. This includes the assessment of birth families, to consider if it is safe for children to be reunited with parents.
Decision making: Make and be responsible for appropriate decisions and exercise initiative with a view to safeguarding children, referring to a more senior level only for significant resource and policy issues or particularly sensitive or complex matters.
Assessments and reviews: Quality assure assessments and case work reviews in line with legislation, ensuring that local and national standards, performance targets and regulatory requirements are met.
Performance Standards: Set clear standards to ensure the team's performance conforms to required professional and performance standards, delivering excellent service to service users, including full electronic recording of work on LCS. Allocate and monitor casework across the team’s area of responsibility in consultation with the Team Manager, complying with Social Work England standards.
Safeguarding and wellbeing: Support social workers to ensure all children and young people in our care are safeguarded and protected from harm. Ensuring the health and wellbeing of our children and young people are promoted.
The Ideal Candidate
Qualified Social Worker: Valid Social Work England registration, Minimum of three years post-qualification experience.
Specialist knowledge: In-depth understanding of childcare, assessments, legislation, policy and research, including related areas such as health, education and emotional wellbeing.
Analytical skills: Ability to analyse highly complex information, summarise and record it clearly and concisely for easy understanding by users and colleagues.
Workflow management: Experience of monitoring and coordinating a team's resources, ensuring cases are allocated promptly and standards are met. Responding to crises by directing urgent actions to prevent escalation, offering stability and consistency.
Organisational and communication skills: Self-motivated with excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to prioritise work, meet deadlines and work effectively as part of a team in a solution-focused manner.
Engagement with Families: Ability to effectively communicate with children and young people in our care, ensuring there is collaboration with Foster Carers, IFA carers and residential carers to ensure the needs of our children are met to a consistently high standard.
UK driving licence: For this role you are required to have a full UK driving licence and provide evidence of your vehicle insurance with business cover and use of a vehicle. If you are successful, you will be required to supply evidence of your licence prior to starting the role.
Enhanced DBS: Should you be offered the role, as part of the pre-employment checks an Enhanced DBS will be actioned for you (unless you are on the DBS Update Service).
Package Description
In addition to your salary, we offer a range of benefits including:
- Great holiday benefits - most roles include 28 days annual leave every year on top of public (bank) holidays, increasing to 32 days after five years. In addition, there is a holiday purchase scheme allowing staff to purchase up to 5 additional days of leave each year.
- Excellent pension – everyone who works for us can join the national Local Government Pension Scheme, widely regarded as one of the best available.
- A full range of family friendly policies including enhanced maternity, adoption and paternity support and a childcare subsidy.
- Access to an award-winning employee benefits programme that includes a health cash plan, a low-cost bike purchase scheme as well as high street discounts and money off entertainment and travel.
- Salary sacrifice car scheme – low-cost leasing of electric and low emission vehicles.
- Blue Light Card - employees working within social care can qualify for an additional range of discounts from national retailers and local businesses.
Why join us? Along with more on our Benefits, discover why Working at the City Council could be the right move for you here Working at the Council | Milton Keynes
Our roles are either designated ‘site based’ or ‘home based’. ‘Site based’ roles can include up to two days a week working from home whilst ‘home based’ roles are based at home four days a week. Of course, managers designate which category roles are in based on the needs of the service and the circumstances.
About The Organisation
Milton Keynes City Council is a large, modern and financially stable employer with around 2,500 people working across our eight areas. Together we provide local residents and businesses with a wide range of important round-the-clock services and aim to make our city a better place to live.
We work hard because of the demands placed on us, like protecting children from harm or preventing homelessness. However, working for the city is always rewarding and everyone has the opportunity to make a real difference.
We’re very proud of our diversity and are committed to having a workforce that reflects the community we serve. Whatever your background, you will be welcome here if you share our values of being dedicated, respectful and collaborative.
We offer great training and support and because of the size and scale of the organisation there are always new opportunities to explore when it’s time for a new role.
If you’d like to know more about how we do things and what matters to us, take a look at our short booklet What makes us Milton Keynes City Council.
