Senior Social Worker

Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard Community Mental Health Teams provide compassionate person-centred interventions to people experiencing mental ill-health in the Towns of Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard.

All Social Workers in the mental health teams have access to a host of brand new facilities at the newly opened Grove View Health and care hub!

The new hub strengthens ELFT’s award winning social care presence and ethos.

Main duties of the job
As a Senior Social Worker, you will act as the champion and leader of social care and safeguarding in the Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard Mental Health Teams.

You will be expected to give robust, consistent, and expert social care practice advice in partnership with specialist senior social care and health colleagues. You will promote high quality, recovery-focused and cost-effective social care services to service users and their carers, focused on the principles of choice, control and independence, as well as ensuring safety.

Working for our organisation
Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard Community Mental Health Teams provide compassionate person-centred interventions to people experiencing mental ill-health in the Towns of Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard.

All Social Workers in the mental health teams have access to a host of brand new facilities at the newly opened Grove View Health and care hub!

The new hub strengthens ELFT’s award winning social care presence and ethos.

Click on the link below to see our exciting new base for South Bedfordshire Social Workers!

https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/info/18/health_and_social_care/726/grove_view_integrated_health_and_care_hub_and_grove_view_apartments

At the Hub the team Senior Social Worker provides intensive support to ensure that bespoke professional supervision is readily available for all our social workers.

The excellent work of the Social Work Learning and Development Project Lead ensures that continuous learning is at the heart of Social Work in Bedfordshire.

The Trust offers an established ASYE programme for newly qualified social workers. CPD pathways beyond the ASYE include:

AMHP/Leadership/Academy/AMCP/Practice Educator/ASYE Assessor training structures.

Bespoke training opportunities are also available as part of your yearly appraisal.

In short; now is a good time to be working as a social worker for ELFT in South Bedfordshire!

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Click on the link below to see our exciting new base for South Bedfordshire Social Workers!

https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/info/18/health_and_social_care/726/grove_view_integrated_health_and_care_hub_and_grove_view_apartments

At the Hub the team Senior Social Worker provides intensive support to ensure that bespoke professional supervision is readily available for all our social workers.

The excellent work of the Social Work Learning and Development Project Lead ensures that continuous learning is at the heart of Social Work in Bedfordshire.

The Trust offers an established ASYE programme for newly qualified social workers. CPD pathways beyond the ASYE include:

AMHP/Leadership/Academy/AMCP/Practice Educator/ASYE Assessor training structures.

Bespoke training opportunities are also available as part of your yearly appraisal.

In short; now is a good time to be working as a social worker for ELFT in South Bedfordshire!

Detailed job description and main responsibilities





Kindly refer to the job description and person specification that is attached to the vacancy profile.

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in 2016, we are proud to be rated ‘Outstanding’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021. We were named in the HSJ’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don’t waste a moment. We close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Person specification
Education/ Qualification/ Training
Essential criteria

An appropriate social work qualification
Registration with Social Work England
Education to degree level
Master’s degree or equivalent post-qualifying training
Approved Mental Health Professional training and qualification (or prepared to undertake training within a year of appointment to role)
Relevant post-qualifying training for social workers
Desirable criteria

Other relevant post-qualification training (e.g .CBT, family therapy)
Best Interest Assessor training
Experience
Essential criteria

• Substantial post-qualification experience with demonstrable evidence of excellent practice at advanced level
• Extensive knowledge of legislation, statutory guidance, theory, and policy in relation to adult and children’s social care
• Experience of undertaking assessment focused on personalisation, choice and control, and care planning
• Understanding of and experience of use of personal budgets and direct payments
• Experience of supervising and mentoring others
• Evidence of multidisciplinary and collaborative working
Desirable criteria

• Evidence of partnership working with service users and carers, demonstrating dignity and respect, particularly in very challenging situations
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria

• Excellent ability to communicate with a wide range of stakeholders, including service users and carers, other professionals and colleagues, members of other organisations and locally communities – verbally and in writing
• Evidence of successful management of challenging meetings
• Experience of using electronic record systems and ability to produce accurate, appropriate, and timely reports
• Ability to analyse service user and carer information
• Experience of undertaking small scale audits and surveys
• Understanding of basic research methods
• Demonstrable ability to working sensitively with diverse needs and environments
• Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice
Desirable criteria

• Ability to manage highly sensitive information
Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated ‘Outstanding’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.