Are you passionate about making a positive and lasting difference to parents and children?
We're looking for an enthusiastic and engaging Advanced Social Work Practitioner - 12 Month Fixed Term join our experienced, supportive and highly successful team at our 7-bedroom Family Assessment Centre in Sowerby Bridge.
This is a fantastic opportunity to work directly alongside families in real time, observing progress, identifying strengths, and supporting positive change throughout their assessment journey. You'll be part of a reflective and creative service where relationships, outcomes and professional development are at the heart of what we do.
Our centre benefits from a dedicated residential staff team on site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing consistent support and observations to families. This gives practitioners a unique opportunity to work collaboratively with colleagues, contributing to comprehensive, evidence-based assessments that make a genuine difference to children's lives.
We use ParentAssess as part of our assessment framework. If you're not familiar with the model, don't worry, we will provide full training and ongoing support to help you develop confidence and expertise in its use.
Working collaboratively with families, colleagues and external stakeholders, you will strive to ensure that parents and children are given every opportunity to reach their full potential whilst maintaining a strong focus on safeguarding and achieving the best possible outcomes.
Based at our Sowerby Bridge service, this role offers the opportunity to work from a single site, allowing you to build strong relationships with families and colleagues without the expectation of travelling between multiple locations.
Find out more about our incredible centre at: Haylen Lodge | Compass Family Assessments
You will
- Provide a comprehensive, flexible and high-quality service to our parents and children using legal, regulatory and statutory guidance to inform practice decisions and to safeguard and protect against harm.
- Provide line management and professional supervision and performance appraisals for a small number of social care staff /students.
- Support the organisation in ensuring that the service is run in line with Compass Parent & Child Policy and legislation, regulations and standards, together with the Inspecting Body.
- Work with the Registered Manager to support complex cases, practice development through coaching and mentoring, providing advice and guidance and respond to safeguarding issues and supporting placements.
- Lead on identified projects and service developments.
- Have a relevant professional qualification in social work and be Social Care England (or equivalent) registered and have substantial experience of residential practice including the assessments.
- Have a good knowledge of parent and child regulations, child care law and safeguarding issues is essential, as is the ability to make objective professional assessments of parents and children.
- Be a strong team player and be able to demonstrate excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Benefits of joining us
- Career Development – We offer many career paths, recognising hard work & supporting you into senior roles.
- Competitive Salary – using structured pay grades based on your training and experience.
- Car Allowance – £100 p/m car allowance to allow you to work flexibly from different locations.
- Wellbeing – Access to therapeutic wellbeing sessions with our Therapeutic Services team.
- Cashback for various medical appointments & treatments including optical and dental with MediCash.
- Receive £200 (2 years), £400 (5 years) and £600 (10 years) service awards, plus up to £500 special recognition award for outstanding practice.
- 25 days annual leave, rising to 28 days within 4 years, plus all bank holidays.
- Additional 2.5 days each year for your birthday, a health and wellbeing day and a half day festive shopping day.
- Life Assurance Scheme. Named beneficiaries qualify for 3x annual salary after successful completion of probationary.
- Salary sacrifice schemes, including childcare vouchers, technology and cycle to work.
Our recruitment process aims to create and maintain a safe workforce and contains robust vetting procedures. The successful applicants will be offered a role subject to satisfactory references and an enhanced DBS check.
Compass is an equal-opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. As we continue to grow, we know that we must have the most talented employees with diverse backgrounds, cultures, perspectives, and experiences to support our children and young people.