Service Manager - Fostering & Adoption Services

Our vision is A Southend Where All Children Achieve Success. By joining Southend City Council as a Service Manager, you will be key in making our vision a reality for all children. You will be joining a service where we demonstrate with pride that: 

• Children are at the heart of our work.
• We spend time getting to know each child and their story.
• We do what we say we're going to do.
• We work with the whole family.
• No matter what, we aim to make things better. 

You will provide support to work to the highest standard using our model of practice, Restorative Practice, to deliver the vision.

Your new role
We are excited to invite you to join us as Service Manager for Fostering and Adoption Services in Southend on Sea City Council. Your key responsibilities as a service leader, will be to lead and manage our Fostering Services, supporting our foster carers and supervising social workers in delivering high quality services and best practice, to help support outcomes for our children and young people requiring care. 

This role requires you to have comprehensive understanding of the National Minimum Standards from regulations applying to foster carers and adopters. We will want you to deliver high quality services in accordance with legislation, council policy, professional standards and best practice to improve outcomes.

The role is responsible for our regulated Fostering and Adoption Service, Kinship Team and marketing and recruitment of Foster Carers, and a range of preventative and targeted initiatives. Working closely with Foster Carers and part of the management team in Corporate Parenting Service, also working in collaboration with key stakeholders and partner agencies.

You will have experience of being a social work manager and leader in a relevant field and experience of leadership in a multi-agency environment working for children’s social care services or other setting. 

What you'll need to succeed 
You will have experience of supervising managers, social workers and social care staff, working closely with foster carers and preparing reports, service improvement work and implementing strategic plans and of managing resources in accordance with best value. You will have experience of managing significant multi-agency change, experience of staff support and development and experience of deploying staff in accordance with needs/demands.

You will have experience of performance improvement, data information management and of work within relevant legislative and best practice frameworks. You will have experience of developing multi-agency teams, developing/acting on performance systems and strategic commissioning and contract management.

You will have excellent verbal and written reporting writing skills and excellent negotiation, communication and influencing skills. Excellent management of self and other staff, including prioritisation, excellent risk assessment, prioritisation and decision making skills and understanding of national policy drivers is also essential.

You will be prepared to work hours according to operational needs including potential out-of-hours working and prepared to make and receive telephone calls at home.

You will maintain professional registration with Social Work England and have evidence of continuous professional development.

We are looking for high quality candidates to support our improvement journey, if this is you, then we want you to apply.

For enquiries, please contact Nick Crick: 07789 766900

What you'll get in return 

Pension:
Southend-on-Sea City Council provide membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for employees aged under 75. The LGPS is a generous scheme and provides you with a future income, independent of share prices and stock market fluctuations.

Leave Entitlements:
We offer our employees a generous leave entitlement from 25 days up to 32 days based on length of service (Continuous service). Southend-on-Sea City Council also offer a range of flexible working and family-friendly leave.

*We also offer paid time off to allow employees to undertake volunteering activities*

Here at Southend-on-Sea City Council we also offer our employees free access to a benefit portal that provides access to wellbeing support and a range of salary sacrifice schemes to help spread the cost of items, including:
• Bicycles, cars, electronics and gym membership.
• The portal also provides access to a range of discounts on products and services including retail, food shopping, travel, dining out and leisure activities.