Assistant Director for Integrated Children's Services (South Kent)

Role Responsibility

Please note that the closing date for this advert has been moved forward to 13 October. Please submit any applications by this date.

The role of the Integrated Children’s Services (ICS) Area Assistant Director is to provide strategic leadership in one of four geographical areas.  You will be responsible for partnership working as well as Social Work and Intensive Early Help practice and performance in line with Kent’s vision for the delivery of Integrated Children’s Services.  The ICS Area Assistant Director leads a coordinated and seamless offer to families, identifying needs early, putting in place the right services at the right time and, where possible, preventing needs from escalating.

An exciting opportunity has opened up for the ICS Area Assistant Director for South Kent (Ashford, Folkestone and Dover). The services managed directly by this post include Early Help Intensive Units, Children’s Social Work and Children in Care Teams.  The Assistant Director will oversee the offer within their geographical area, including how their services work alongside wider internal and external Children’s Services, to ensure a robust and joined up model of support.

We are an Outstanding Children's Service. The Area Assistant Director plays a key strategic and operational role in our journey to provide the very best services for the children and young people of Kent.  The successful candidate will be a qualified and registered Social Worker with a significant experience in managing Children’s Social Work Teams.  They will understand the importance of working within a statutory framework and recognise the benefits of good preventative and early intervention work. 

KCC has an ambition to be recognised as an Inclusive Organisation, where everyone is valued.  This is predicated on a commitment to embracing diversity by seeking it out, showing a real commitment to equality, fairness and justice which empowers people who are disadvantaged by discrimination and unjust biases.  Inclusive Leadership requires leaders to address and overcome all forms of exclusion at personal, structural and systemic levels, thus requiring confident leadership and being at ease with different people and different perspectives. Inclusive leadership is therefore intrinsically linked to ED&I work within organisations which enables and creates the actions and culture of an equal playing field for all.  This is a challenging and exciting opportunity for a senior leader to be part of and take forward.

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.

This role attracts an additional premium payment of £15,000.

As part of the interview process for this role you may be required to complete additional testing.

Interviews will be held on Friday 25th October 2024 in Maidstone.

Contact Details

For any queries, please contact Ellie Powling at ellie.powling@kent.gov.uk

About the Company

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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.