The job itself

East Riding of Yorkshire Council's Children’s Services have been rated GOOD by Ofsted following our recent ILACS inspection. Since the last inspection in 2019, the leadership team has made significant and sustained changes in all of the practice and leadership areas identified for improvement. Through extensive engagement with external partners and scrutineers, the improvements in the service mean that children and young people in East Riding receive a timely and effective response and intervention when they need it.

Senior leaders and councillors are clear about what their strengths are and what still needs to be improved in service delivery, and their self-evaluation is accurate. They have ambitious plans and have secured significant investment to develop their services further as part of their continuous improvement journey. Senior leaders lead by example, and this has supported practitioners to embed the relational model of practice with the families they work with

A great and exciting opportunity has arisen within the Participation, Innovation, and Improvement Portfolio for an experienced social worker/manager to join the service in the role of Children’s Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) to join our established team to ensure the needs of ‘Cared For’ children are met in accordance with IRO Handbook. This is a great opportunity to be part of the proposed development work to strengthen the work in the service following a realignment and separation into a dedicated IRO function within the Independent Reviewing and Safeguarding Service.

Our IRO service is busy and the role offers the opportunity for both personal and professional development and you will have the opportunity to set the standard in a developing and growing practice systems to ensure that we achieve the best outcomes for our children, young people and their networks.

The post will offer invaluable experience in supporting and challenging the corporate parenting role, a chance to hold to account partner agencies within CYPSSS and colleagues and teams who work alongside our children and young people within the community and be part of shaping and developing the IRO service over the next twelve months.

These posts are part of a wider commitment by the Children, Families and Schools Directorate to support the practice system to deliver impact and focused outcomes for our children, young people and their networks via building a sustainable foundation of support to our holistic workforce. This is a great opportunity to be part of an aspirational and forward-thinking Portfolio with a priority of supporting those children, young people and their families that are ‘Cared For’ by the local authority.

The Office Base for this role will be County Hall, Beverley, although you will work across the East Riding of Yorkshire footprint alongside the Heads of Service within the service. Working arrangements will be hybrid and working days are Monday to Friday.

Other benefits of being a social worker in East Riding include:

• Social Work England fees reimbursed
• Excellent Training, Learning and Development opportunities
• Licence for Community Care Inform to support with evidence-based practice and CPD
• Regular reflective supervision with a focus on your wellbeing, your development, and what is working well
• Flexible working options including option for a nine-day fortnight
• Christmas to New Year shut down – working arrangements are on a rota basis with additional time paid or time off in lieu
• Strong management support at all levels
• A service wide commitment to celebrating best practice and practice strengths
• A service wide commitment to promoting social work wellbeing and support

Our model

‘You can, I can, We can’

We have created a bespoke practice model that reflects and connects our vision, our value base and our behaviour as one East Riding of Yorkshire approach to working with children, young people and their families, which is nurtured and grown from within East Riding of Yorkshire CYPSSS and owned by our workforce.

We remain committed to Signs of Safety as a practice framework, but this will be set within a much wider, values based, model of practice that clearly connects Signs of Safety much more clearly with the East Riding value base, and our overall approach to making and sustaining relationships with children, families, and communities.

Without a well embedded model, there is nothing to centre our practice on to ensure that, while the work may be different, all our teams are grounded in the same values, beliefs, theories, and approaches. Having a well-developed practice model helps to create a common language for the service and enables everyone to understand how we go about doing the right things, in the right way and for the right reasons for children and their families.

The right candidate

You will contribute to the Quality of Practice agenda within the Directorate to help embed and promote a culture that leads to high quality and impact focused outcomes for children, young people and their families in East Riding of Yorkshire.

You will be required to work with service leads, front line managers and front-line practitioners to agreed outcome focused requirements in driving up practice across CYPSSS.

You will demonstrate good experience of front-line practice, within a children’s social work service with an ability to identify what good practice looks like.

You will have advanced working knowledge of childcare legislative framework, strength based and restorative based approaches, as well as relational based practice.

You will have great attention to detail and the ability to interrogate and analyse complex information with good accuracy, including an ability to critically evaluate children and young people’s lived experience so that support can be provided to ensure interventions are outcome and impacted focused.

We are looking for energetic, creative social workers with 5 years minimum experience of working with children and families who can demonstrate tenacity and enthusiasm in making a positive difference to the lives of children and young people.

We are a small team and positive relationships are valued. You will also be working with the teams across our service and therefore, it is essential that the post holder is able to work effectively with others with a flexible and adaptable approach in a relational based approach.

You will be able to demonstrate a high level of motivation and the ability to work independently, with skills in working within timescales and with conflicting priorities.

If you have all of these qualities, have the right value base, and are an innovative leader, then what are you waiting for? Apply now and make a difference.