Kent County Council

Kent County Council is one of the largest authorities in England with a commitment to improving services for children and their families and offers good support to staff.

The Families and Social Care Directorate has recently re-aligned its services to ensure a focus on learning, and on the most vulnerable children, young people and their families through the creation of the Specialist Children’s Services Group.

The purpose of the Group is to:

Intervene earlier to support children with additional needs and their families;

Provide protection for children at risk of abuse and neglect;

Meet the needs of children who are Looked After, including the need for permanence;

Provide support for Children in Need and their wider family;

Remove barriers to learning for vulnerable children and young people. This includes children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities including those with additional and special educational needs.

Children’s Social Services is part of the newly formed Specialist Children’s Services Group, along with SEN Services, Attendance and Behaviour Services and Educational Psychology, and Preventative Services, including Children’s Centres, creating opportunities for integrated working and a common goal of ensuring children and their families are at the centre of everything that the Group does.

There has never been a more exciting time to be a social worker in Kent.

If you would like to be part of a team that focus on improving outcomes for the most vulnerable children and young people then Kent is right for you.

In Kent we believe that our confident and competent social workers are central to our success.  We therefore have a commitment to excellent supervision, support and ongoing professional development for all our staff.

Kent has a dedicated Children’s Professional Training and Development Unit that co-ordinates a range of professional training for social workers, that supports the Post Qualifying Framework.

We work closely with the Children’s Workforce Development Council, including a programme of support to Newly Qualified Social Workers and also with our local universities.  For example, we are currently undertaking a joint research project ‘Decision Making under Uncertainty’.

We also provide a range of development opportunities that includes coaching, mentoring, shadowing, secondments and topic based workshops, much of which is, of course, multi-agency in nature.

In Kent we believe that well trained and supported staff directly impact on improving outcomes for children.

We would welcome an application from you and you can find full details of job opportunities by visiting www.kent.gov.uk/jobs

Click here to view our advertisement that appeared in COMPASS 2012