Children and Families / Child Protection

Working with children and families requires a sound knowledge of key legislation, such as the Children's Act 1989, the Leaving Care Act, as well as the ability to carry out core assessments and child protection plans. There are a number of varying roles within this sector, these roles can range from dealing with Child Protection to leaving care to more specialised work such as dealing with Initial Assessments.

Each role has different needs, for instance, Child Protection work requires the ability to conduct thorough assessments, write reports and present in court. Roles in Child Protection involve working with and alongside a variety of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds, and require an ability to work constructively with other professionals such as teachers, doctors and the police. Attention to detail, thorough recording and a strong working knowledge of UK legislative frameworks are essential for these roles.

Adoption and Fostering

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Understanding the complex needs of young people is essential. Experience in assessing foster carers will be beneficial for positions in the adoption and fostering sectors. The roles require creativity to explore new ways of recruiting foster carers.

Candidates should be familiar with current legislation and information on all adoption issues, including proposed changes to the legislation. This role requires providing information and advice, as well as support for adoptive and foster parents. Vacancies in this area are limited, especially for overseas applicants, due to the complexity of the legislation.

Care Management - Older Persons Service

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Working in collaboration with other professionals such as Occupational Therapists, people in Primary Care Trusts, and Local Hospitals, these roles involve carrying out assessments of social care needs, proposing and coordinating care packages to ensure safe and speedy discharges from hospital or improving support in the home environment.
Candidates will require:

• A sound knowledge of the NHS and Community Care Act
• Experience in carrying out assessments and care planning
• Thorough knowledge of Risk Assessments and Adult Protection protocol
• Good oral and written skills in order to write detailed reports
• An ability to prioritise workload and work under pressure
• Organisational and time management skills
• An awareness of the current issues relating to older people and adults with physical disabilities will enable you to complete thorough assessments
• Experience working in a multi-disciplinary setting

Caseloads are varied and can be complex. You will be involved in Adult Protection and statutory assessments under the Community Care Act (1990) in addition to supporting service users and carers. Some teams are attached to hospitals, so you could be working within a hospital or community team environment.

Care Management - Learning Disabilities

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Learning Disabilities is a broad sector in Britain, with a wide variety of services available. It is important to keep up to date with current legislation as this gives the direction for community care and learning disabilities. There is a strong emphasis on promoting independence and this will be integral to your assessments and care planning.
Tasks include:

• Complex caseload management. This requires a sound knowledge of community care legislation
• Working with families, service users and other professionals in a multidisciplinary approach
• Coordinating the assessment, care planning and reviewing of cases; this will be done with the service users, families, providers and other health professionals
• Collating and negotiating creative packages of care. This entails good background knowledge of services for people with Learning Disabilities, such as respite, community activities, supported living options etc
• An awareness of Safeguarding Adult protocol and putting this into practice in assessing thresholds for Vulnerable Adult referrals that come through to the team.
• Record keeping and maintaining accurate databases
• Working closely with other care management, health, housing and voluntary teams to ensure the needs of the individual are met

Mental Health

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Community Mental Health teams are fully integrated with medical services, so you will be working closely with health professionals in assessing and co-coordinating all aspects of the care planning for people with mental illness.

Having experience of care management and assessment with adults or working with young people with mental health difficulties will be useful. Overseas workers should note that to carry out some of the duties of a Social Worker in this setting requires The Approved Social Worker Award qualification, which can only be obtained in the UK. These posts will therefore not be open to applicants from overseas applicants.

Youth Justice

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It is essential to have experience working with adolescents. Some of this experience should be directly with young offenders. In addition you will need to have good working knowledge of current legislation and issues relating to young offenders, sound assessment skills and an ability to work collaboratively with professionals from other agencies.
As part of these teams you will be required to:

• Complete assessments
• Prepare reports for criminal courts
• Manage a caseload of statutory and non-statutory cases Community integration work
• You might also participate in preventative work, where you will liaise closely with young people and their families to develop effective ways of working with young people in the criminal justice system