Advanced Practitioner, Mental Health Social Worker

Role Responsibility

The 18+ Care Leavers Service has a vacancy for a Mental Health Social Worker to join the team working alongside another post in our Thistley Hill base.  This is an exciting opportunity to become part of a dynamic, forward thinking, Ofsted rated “Good” service in its journey and aspiration to achieve “Outstanding “in its’ delivery of services to care experienced young adults.

The Mental Health Social Worker will work alongside and assist Personal Advisors working with care experienced young adults (care leavers aged 18-25yrs) who present with complex mental health needs to:

• provide consultation and advocacy in assisting these young adults in accessing mental health resources in the community so that they receive the appropriate support.
• work in co-production with a range of statutory and non-statutory partners to maximise access to community and wellbeing resources in support of person centred recovery planning. This will include person centred assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation of actions plans in collaboration with Personal Advisors and multi-agency partners.
• building relationships with key agencies and partners to improve the support provided to Care Leavers
• ensure that resources are utilised effectively to empower the people who use our services and to safeguard and promote their welfare. 
• support the transition from Children in Care to Care Leaver for those with complex mental health needs.

You should be working at the level of capability set out in the Professional Capability Framework and the Kent Social Care Capability Framework for “Advanced Practitioner/Professional Educator/Social Work Manager”.

The role is a dual role of holding a small caseload and offering support to the Personal Advisers. The Mental Health Social Worker can hold a small case load of highly complex cases (presenting with acute mental health issues) who will either remain in the service and be allocated a Personal Adviser once support is in place or be supported by other services.

You will need to provide high quality advice and support to service colleagues and Personal Advisors, help share and manage risks in relation to complex mental health cases. This will include providing advice to senior managers to assist in appropriate service and case planning and may include attending panels to review cases.

At the “18+ Care Leavers Service” we want the best for the Care Leavers of Kent, and this can only be delivered as a team effort with everyone playing their part. The service has continued to expand taking a multi-disciplinary approach to support Personal Advisor to meet the needs to young adults.

The service is currently split over two bases, one at Worrall House, West Malling and one at Thistley Hill in Dover. With a strong commitment to the ideas of corporate parenting the service is looking for like-minded creative Mental Health Social Worker to join the service and help us to consistently improve the outcomes and opportunities for our care leavers agreed 18 to 25 years old.

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/Welsh sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

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

Contact Details

For further information on this role, please contact:

Rita Boboye: Rita.Boboye@kent.gov.uk

Elaine Simcock: Elaine.Simcock@kent.gov.uk

About the Company

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 and faiths, 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.