Job Introduction
Bradford Children and Families Trust was established in April 2023 to enhance the quality and delivery of Children’s Services across our district. Our purpose is clear, to ensure that our promise to improve the lives of children and young people in Bradford becomes a reality. It’s a tough ask. It requires dedication, determination, and resilience – but under a new Chief Executive, Senior Leadership team and an unswerving drive to deliver the best outcomes, we are confident that we’ll achieve our ambition – and you, yours.
So, if you’re up for the Challenge we’d love to hear from you!
About The Role
- The Placement Coordination Service is a busy yet rewarding service to be a part of.
- Social Workers in the Placement Coordination Service work with the guidance, support and supervision of the Team Manager and Service Manager to find good quality, safe and affordable placements for children referred into the Service.
- There are strong, well-established relationships in place with the provider market as well as with inhouse services, social work teams across the Trust, the commissioning team, and the contracts and quality team. There is a strong ethos of working together to ensure that Bradford’s children are in safe, quality placements.
- The service is busy and demand-led, but there is strong peer support from a fantastic team.
Key Responsibilities
- Social Workers in the Placement Coordination Service will be responsible for:
- Timely and proactive searching for suitable placements for children referred into the Service;
- Drawing on your social work skills, knowledge and expertise to understand children in the context of their life story and attachment history and identify placements which are able to meet their needs;
- Developing and maintaining appropriate provider relationships;
- Working collaboratively with inhouse services, providers and social work teams regarding placements;
- Managing a caseload of short-term and longer-term placement searches, ensuring each search is prioritised appropriately;
- Ensuring provider offers are in line with contractual expectations and quality standards;
- Placement cost negotiations where appropriate;
- Ensuring all necessary funding approvals are in place for each child’s placement;
- Ensuring systems are updated with searches and placements detail;
- Supporting the team with duty on a rota basis.
About You
- The best placements teams are made up of a variety of people with a mixture of skills, experiences and qualifications.
- You will need to be able to work well as part of a team, prioritise and flex your work depending on cases incoming, work quickly and effectively, be organised, ensure recordings are accurate and timely, and put the child at the heart of all you do.
- Values in line with the Trust’s values and a strong work ethic are key. The service consists of colleagues from a variety of backgrounds and qualifications including social work, teaching, housing, commercial and commissioning. Applications are welcome from those with the right values, skills and mindset – this is a busy yet rewarding service.
- Relationships are fundamental to being able to find children’s placements, so you will need to be able to forge strong working relationships as well as have experience working across multi-agency and partners.
- We all have a responsibility to ensure that the Trust’s money is used wisely, so you’ll need to be able to understand the commissioning and contractual elements of placements brokerage, ensuring that any placements made make effective use of the Trust’s resources.
Benefits:
- Generous Employer Contributions in a Local Authority Pension Scheme
- Competitive salary and pay progression structure.
- Real living wage as the minimum rate of pay
- Supportive carer and parental policies
- Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave
- Access to Occupational Health and confidential counselling services
- Supportive staff networks
- Access to Blue Light Card Discounts
- Professional development/support
- Career Progression
- Enhanced annual leave entitlement
- Social Worker Registration Fees paid
- Flexible Working/Hybrid options subject to service need
Next Steps
- For an informal discussion please contact Emma Belaid, Service Manager emma.belaid2@bradfordcft.org.uk
