Head of Service - Children's Social Care

Location: Bluebell Centre, Solihull

Salary: £79,812 - £84,280 per annum. Incremental progression is subject to performance.

Closing date: 19 Jan 2025

Reference: SOL/TP/179/974

Job Type: Social work; Children - Qualified

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: Standard

Hours: Full-Time

Childrens Young People & Families

Competitive salary up to £84,280 depending upon experience.

Are you passionate about delivering excellent services to Children and Young People and want to be part of an organisation that is committed to making improvements to the way it supports children and families?

This is an incredibly exciting time to be joining Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council as we continue to progress our improvement journey through innovation and positive change. We are committed to being ambitious in the way that we will work with children, young people, their families, and carers in a restorative way. We are transforming our service delivery, and we have committed a considerable investment in expanding our permanent and skilled workforce.

We currently have two opportunities for Head of Service within Childrens Social care:

• Head Of Service - Corporate Parenting
• Head Of Service - Safeguarding & Quality Assurance

Please indicate within your application which post you are interested in applying for.

Head Of Service - Corporate Parenting

As Head of Service Corporate Parenting, you will have a proven track record within children's safeguarding, and be passionate about corporate parenting. You will have responsibility for our services in Children Looked After, UASC, Care Experienced, Fostering and Adoption, and our Residential Childrens Homes. We are looking for an individual who can provide inspirational, inclusive, and engaging leadership in the strategic and operational delivery of our Corporate Parenting offer and partnership working as well as ensuring implementation of practice standards across all service areas.

You will be a dynamic, forward thinking strategic senior manager, with a key understanding and extensive experience in leading the fast pace working environment of Childrens social care services. You will have experience in the development and delivery of safeguarding services.

You will be confident and able to demonstrate your leadership and management skills, whilst driving forward good social work practice delivery, as well as implement continued improvements and positive changes. Ideally you will also have experience of developing and leading Childrens Residential Homes.

Head Of Service - Safeguarding & Quality Assurance

Reporting directly to the Service Director Quality & Partnerships, we are looking for an experienced senior leader in children's social care, who understands how to develop and lead a good children's service. This role is focussed particularly to provide strong leadership in the delivery of children's statutory social work services in an agreed area of the business, ensuring they provide high quality protection, support and care for vulnerable children and young people.

This post will be focused on improvement, quality assurance and partnerships, with line management responsibility for the IRO Service, Principle Social Worker, Systems, performance and quality assurance functions.

The role will focus on providing the leadership and expertise in ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of children's safeguarding arrangements within the Council and the wider partnership (notably the Local Safeguarding Children Partnership). You will develop strategic plans that will ensure continuous improvement in a context of changing policy legislation and practice.

As Head of Service you will need to be a strong inclusive leader, who is able to influence, build and maintain strong internal and external relationships to ensure consistency, effective communication and working together.

We are looking for candidates with a proven track record of effectively managing and delivering frontline children's social work services, you must have:

• A professional Social Work Qualification, Social Work England Registration and evidence of continuous professional development
• Effective leadership and staff management experience and proven ability to motivate and develop staff to deliver excellent services within a change agenda
• Proven experience of working collaboratively and in partnership with other agencies e.g. schools, Health, Police, the independent sector and with elected Members
• Ability to provide practice leadership that improves the quality of social work and outcomes for children.

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package, including up to 30 days annual leave, flexible working, high street discount offers, up to £6k relocation allowance, and a 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme - click to find out more.

Working for Children and Families in Solihull social work roles Solihull, UK (solihullcarejobs.co.uk)

We are ambitious in Solihull and are building a stronger Solihull for our children, families, and workforce. Connecting Families is the name of Solihull Children's Services practice framework. At its core Connecting Families demonstrates the beliefs, values and principles of restorative practice and gives us a consistent relationship-based way of practicing to improve outcomes for children, young people, and their families.

We believe that families and their connected networks are of primary importance and are the most important influence on improving outcomes for children. We believe that children and their family networks are experts in their own lives and that children and their family networks have strengths, on which they should be empowered to build and draw on through effective family decision making.

To apply, please click on the link below.

If you have a specific question regarding this post, please contact:

Rachael Ward, Assistant Director Children & Families, on or

Craig Liversage, Assistant Director Quality & Partnerships, on or

Closing Date: 19 January 2025

Interviews will be held week commencing 10 February 2025

Candidates will be required to complete online Psychometric assessments prior to the interview as part of the recruitment process.

This post will require an enhanced DBS check.

This is an essential car user post as the demands of the job make it operationally essential and there is a contractual requirement to make a suitable vehicle available to ensure the requirements of the job can be carried out effectively.

Applicants must be able to drive, have a driving licence and be a car owner, however for disabled applicants, reasonable adjustments will be made where required.

This post is covered by the Fluency Duty, as outlined in the Code of Practice on the English language requirements for public sector workers.

Solihull Council is proud to be an Equal Opportunities Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees - a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit.

Solihull Council has a responsibility for, and a commitment to, safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults at risk and requires all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Attached documents
Job Description & Person Specification