Mental Health and Justice (POWER) Practice Supervisor

Mental Health and Justice (POWER) Practice Supervisor

Permanent, Full Time

£45,217 to £54,395 per annum

Location: Essex

Working Style: Fixed-base worker

Closing Date: 3rd June 2024

This is a fantastic opportunity for a qualified experienced Senior Social Worker to join an award-winning emotional well-being and youth justice project making a real difference to children and young people's lives.

The post holder will be based in Chelmsford working in schools across South Essex and Southend and Thurrock).

The POWER (Promoting Opportunities for Emotional Resilience) Team

The POWER project (Mental Health and Justice Pathways) is an award-winning* team of social work and senior social work practitioners developing therapeutically informed interventions to prevent the escalation of children's mental health needs and to reduce the risk of offending, or the need more specialist services such as Tier 4 inpatient provision. Practitioners work systemically and therapeutically to introduce supportive measures for young people showing markers of emotional distress, enabling them to remain in mainstream education, and support families and schools to build strength and resilience in their children and young people.

*Children and Young People Now Young Justice category 2019

Here in Essex, we continue to raise the bar about practice and our investment in our workforce is second to none. It's an exciting time to join us. Not only have we been named Outstanding by Ofsted, we are delighted and at the same time humbled to have been crowned Social Work Employer of the Year for the second time in the last three years!

Essex County Council (ECC) is one of the largest and most dynamic local authorities in the UK, serving a population of 2 million residents, and has a very successful track record of delivering transformational change. ECC anticipated change was needed in the public sector and has worked to deliver better quality at lower cost. We have an ambitious transformation agenda - one with the scope to reach every part of the council. We are changing the way we think, the way we work, and the ways in which we deliver our services. We are committed to becoming a place where individuals, partners and communities feel proud to play their role and genuinely want to belong. We're immensely proud of our flexible working options.

The Role

The POWER project is a multi-skilled team, developing early interventions to prevent the escalation of children and young people's poor emotional wellbeing and mental health needs and reduce the risk of offending, or the need for more specialist services such as Tier 4 inpatient provision. Identifying and introducing supportive measures for young people showing early-stage markers of distress, enabling them to remain in mainstream education and supporting families seeking assistance.

The Mental and Health Justice Practice Supervisor will deliver case supervision and hold a caseload of more complex cases and carry out quality assurance activities and measure outcomes to continue to develop innovative, sustainable methods of intervention, leading to successful long-term strategies.

A key purpose will be to support Essex YJS to continue to develop its early prevention offer, including supporting Out of Court Disposals (OOCDs), working alongside key stakeholders such as the police, and other agencies such as the Children's Society.

The post holder will be a highly experienced senior social worker and hold a professional qualification in social work with evidence of excellent practice in casework, recording and assessment. Flexibility and ability to build strong partnerships is essential for this role as the role will operate in a multi-agency environment, across 3 local authorities.

Accountabilities

• Responsible for case work supervision across a small team of mental health and justice workers, ensuring adequate resourcing, carrying out enhanced quality assurance and measuring success of interventions through outcomes.
• Responsible for providing a source of specialist advice and professional consultation for Mental Health and Justice Workers, contributing to the development of practice standards.
• Responsible for providing early interventions for more complex cases of children and young people displaying early markers of poor emotional wellbeing and potential mental ill health to prevent escalation to more specialist services. This includes assessment plans, reviews, report writing and signposting for onward referrals.
• Responsible for developing a whole family approach, signposting to relevant agencies and the voluntary sector, enabling parents to seek support for themselves.
• Contribute to identifying unmet need around children and young people's emotional wellbeing and mental health, leading to whole system change. Analyse and assess the effectiveness of key interventions Recording interventions to monitor success of outcomes.
• Responsible for establishing plans which provide sufficient change in young persons' behaviour to enable them to remain in a mainstream educational setting.
• Develop and deliver bespoke upskill programmes across the system, including consultancy, to enable capacity building within educational settings, YJTs, children's social care and pupil referral units.
• Responsible for cultivating innovative ways of working, testing new initiatives, which assist in the development and implementation of protocols.
• Work collaboratively with children's mental health services, Youth Justice Service (YJS), children's social care, adopting a multi-agency approach with Police, Health and others.
• Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Possesses an accredited degree or diploma level, professional qualification in social work
• Evidence of substantial continuing professional development and expert knowledge in relevant professional area, delivering assurance around practice and participation in casework, recording and supervision.
• Evidence of direct engagement with young people, with successful delivery of 1-1, direct and indirect interventions.
• Proven ability to work within evidence informed framework, with knowledge and understanding of criminogenic factors, causing young people to offend.
• Substantial experience of building strong partnerships, which are collaborative and influential in their nature and engender delivery.
• Deep knowledge and understanding of vulnerability and safeguarding protocols.
• Experience of developing and delivering bespoke training and consultancy.
• Evidence of being a catalyst for change, early in young peoples' lives.

To read more about us please visit: Children & Families

Please take a look at our 'No Magic' Children & Families video

The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wider operational area including travelling around the county of Essex and beyond, transporting service users and their belongings and to be able to do so in an emergency. Driving licence and car or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means is essential.

Why Essex? Essex County Council has a location to be proud of. Our 1,300 square miles stretch from Constable Country to the Thames Estuary, from the dynamic M11 corridor to the traditional seaside resorts of Clacton and Walton. England's oldest town, Colchester, and two of its newest - Basildon and Harlow - are right here. Along with the City of Chelmsford, the county town, they form our major population centres. It means real choice and makes Essex the ideal place for your career. Read more about us.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We're committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process.

We're also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

What you should do next

If you are interested in finding out more about this role, we would love to hear from you. Please apply via the Working for Essex website.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

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