Team Manager

Role Responsibility

Team Manager in West Kent Children in Care Service (KR12)

About the role

We have a vacancy within West Kent Children in Care Service, based at Worrall House in West Malling.

Leading a close-knit team you’ll be a champion of social work values, delivering and improving services for children and young people. You will allocate resources and workload and ensure the provision of cost-effective services. Your day-to-day support and high-quality caseload supervision will ensure your team can meet the complex and changing demands of the service, as well as enable their ongoing development. Working in partnership with a broad range of agencies, you will contribute to the development of Children’s Services procedures and policies. And, advising on commissioning strategies, you’ll ensure that services are developed and accessible to all children, young people and families needing support, protection and intervention.

About you

Your social work degree – CQSW, DipSW or equivalent – must be supported by professional registration and extensive post-qualification experience. This experience should include supervision, budget management, and joint working with partners in the statutory, private and voluntary sectors. You should be confident in your ability to lead and develop a team. And, with an in-depth understanding of safeguarding procedures, legislative frameworks and social work theories relating to child services, you’ll have the expertise needed to contribute to practice and policy development.

In return, we offer an attractive, a competitive salary, £4000 Golden Hello payment (subject to eligibility i.e., non KCC staff) £3000pa retention payment after qualifying period, £2000 car allowance and a good pension scheme.

About us

We want the best for the children of Kent, and this can only be delivered as a team effort with everyone playing their part. So, we are creating a culture that fosters excellence and collaboration – a place where social workers are empowered to be creative and share ideas and advice. With Ofsted rating our services as “good”, Kent County Council’s Children’s Services teams are working together, stronger than ever, to deliver strengthened services and improved outcomes.

Kent is a large and diverse county, offering a broad range of challenges and opportunities to support children and young people from a variety of backgrounds and circumstance. Our Senior Practitioners also can work across a range of locations and environments, and to be seconded to or move to other teams. They can take on new challenges and experience more opportunities to develop and progress.

The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wide operational area including travelling around the county of Kent and beyond to transport children and their belongings and be available to do so in an emergency.  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 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/Welsh sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Contact Details

Paul Meggitt

Service Manager

03000 414491

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.