I manage a team of professional social work staff and support staff to provide a service to clients of children’s social services in accordance with legislation, policies and practices. I develop, enhance and maintain locality specific collaborative working with a broad range of agencies including NHS, police, lcsp and specialist agencies, ensuring positive outcomes for young people. I lead and direct the work of a team of professional social work and support staff in order to ensure they effectively fulfil the complex changing demands of the service. Provide day to days support and professional supervision of social workers and other staff when required, managing their performance. I allocate resources and workload across the team to ensure effective delivery of service within allocated cash limit, taking into account local and national priorities. I recruit, develop and motivate staff groups capable of fulfilling the changing demands of the service, through day to day support and providing for high quality caseload supervision to ensure the ongoing continuous development in order to deliver a high quality and consistent service to the locality. I contribute to the preparation of the team budget. Control, monitor and forecast expenditure, taking remedial action as required to enable cost effective services to be provided within the allocated cash limit. I contribute to the formulation, monitoring and review of professional practice procedures, strategy and policy through working closely with colleagues in other divisions and/or via county working groups. I monitor professional standards within the team in liaison with senior practitioners and the training and development team to ensure compliance with all policies and procedures. I undertake case audits to quality assure file management and standards of practice.

My main duties and responsibilities were:I managed a caseload of complex and difficult cases to a high standard. I provided high quality resources of professional social work knowledge and expertise to a team of Social Workers, to include supervision, group meetings, assisted fieldwork, attendance in court, case audits and reviews etc, to assist the team in ensuring that it carries out its core tasks to a high standard. I provided coaching and mentoring support to Social Workers, including those undertaking post qualifying training, to support and further their professional knowledge and development to impact upon the overall quality of practice within teams. I attended court, where appropriate, to assist the team in ensuring that key professional input and expertise was provided to high profile and sensitive cases. I undertook staff supervision as directed by the Team Leader according to the needs of the team. I acted as a Practice Assessor to support student placements. I liaised regularly with peer colleagues throughout the Directorate to ensure social work practice development.

My position as a social worker within a child in care team required that I managed a complex case load. I undertook Court work and completed assessments such as SGO's, Parenting Assessments, Adoption Applications, Care Plans, Initial and Final Evidence. I supported children and young people to experience stability with foster placements, transition from foster care to either parents, family members or adoption permanency homes. I kept children and young people's care/pathway plans updated, while also completing child in care reviews/pathway plan reviews on a 6-monthly basis. I worked collaborative with many agencies that included: health, education and police to support children in experiencing safe environments in education, placement and in the community. This included developing risk management plans with professionals and young people to support managing risk such as missing, CSE and other forms of exploitation. I ensured I continued developing my social work practice through accessing training and development. I also completed my ASYE in my first year of practice.

The duties and responsibilities that I held while on placement included: conducting Initial Visits, Relief Carer and Form F assessments. The Form F involves carrying out an in-depth assessment of a potential foster carer to establish an awareness of their suitability in providing children in care with emotional and psychological support. I co-facilitated a Skills to Foster course, which provides applicants with insights of themes including attachment, abuse, neglect, the importance of identity and managing heightened behaviour. I was actively involved in the assessing of applicants during the course and providing feedback for further assessment during the Form F. I held a caseload of 5 foster carers whom I meet every 4 weeks for supervision meetings. Explored themes included identifying support needs for foster carers, ascertaining foster carers training needs, and developing an awareness of how a child/young person is developing within their environment. I also carried out Annual Reviews for foster carers. All duties involved completing reports within required timescales. I attended Child in Care Reviews and chaired Placement Plan 2 meetings which facilitated inter-professional collaborative practice in meeting the needs of children/young people in care. Further experience involved working on the fostering duty desk. This involved matching and planning, carrying out risk assessments to ensure children/young people are placed with foster carers who can appropriately support the needs of a child/young person.

My second-year placement included supporting people who have a learning difficulty/disability within the Valuing People Now 2009 and Valuing Employment Now 2009 strategy. This included developing budgeting skills; accessing voluntary and paid employment; filling out application forms; accessing support and advice from the local job centre; applying for training courses; developing risk assessments and person centred plans in supporting needs and achieving goals; and sharing information to support decision making. While on placement I attended local and regional conferences regarding personalisation which has supported my knowledge in understanding Personalisation through Person Centred Planning 2010 and recognising person centred interventions according to individual needs. I also have knowledge of direct payments, personal budgets and utilising Valuing people 2001 and Valuing People Now 2009. By developing my awareness of the strategies and policies has increased my practice skills in developing choice, empowerment, co-production and supporting the individual to be a consumer of services rather than a passive recipient. I co-produced and presented a Relationships course, which identified recognising appropriate relationships with friends, partners and professionals for adults with learning disabilities. This was in- conjunction with No Secrets 2000 guidance and recognising forms of abuse and developing the confidence in speaking out against abuse. The placement experience has provided me an opportunity to develop and enhance my practice in a non-judgemental, empathetic approach that has facilitated supporting people in developing self-esteem, self-worth and social identity.

I was contracted to the O2 network. This included visiting mobile phone sites and conducting information gathering and analysis. I worked in collaboration with O2 optimisers in developing how best to strategically improve the network’s performance for O2 public and corporate customers.Duties and Responsibilities:• I worked in partnership with work colleagues to maintain O2 mobile phone sites.• I was involved in information gathering.• I analyzed information.• I was actively involved in optimizing O2 mobile phone antennas to increase network coverage.• I worked across the south of England to support the maintenance of O2 sites.

Duties and Responsibilities:• I worked with members of the public regarding information finding.• I provided reports and evidence regarding appeals of penalty notices.• I worked in collaboration with the police and the council’s CCTV network regarding information for police to carry out their duties.• I worked within company policies to achieve departmental outcomes.• I attended regular training.

Duties and Responsibilities:• I was engaged in quality customer service.• I worked collaboratively to ensure the setup of the department.• I attended management meetings to discuss support needs and sales and waste analysis.• I trained new colleagues in supporting the understanding of working procedures and health and safety procedures.• I worked with the manager to devise working strategies to improve reducing waste and developing working practices.• I completed departmental paper work regarding health and safety and stock taking.