Role Profile
1 PURPOSE OF YOUR JOB
To provide services that protect vulnerable children, to prevent or reduce care need or where necessary provide services which allow them to thrive in care.
2 DIMENSIONS
Revenue income £4,801,000
Revenue expenditure £24,923,000
Direct reports 9
Indirect reports 271
3 Principal Accountabilities
· For delivering statutory services as required for children in Need or Children in Care
· For the provision of Early Help services to vulnerable children and young people
· For ensuring the Quality Assurance and Performance oversight of Children’s Social Care Services
· For the delivery of Provision for Children in Care, to include Fostering and Adoption services
· For providing a Youth Justice Service for children and young people who offend and to divert and reduce offending behaviour.
· For the Provision of Specialist Disability Services for children and young people.
4 JOB CONTEXT
The role is responsible for delivering the council’s statutory children’s social care services and the performance of the council in this area is subject to Ofsted inspection
The work is fundamental in protecting children and young people and is complex, emotive and subject to great degree of scrutiny.
The role represents the council at regional and national forums associated with the improvement of children and young people’s emotional and mental health plus other key regional and national strategic and consultative groups, including; Regionalisation of Adoption – including the arrangements for City of York to develop and host the North and Humber agency, National Transfer Scheme for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children – including the leadership of an action plan commissioned by the ADCS for a Yorkshire and Humber response
The job holder leads and sets the objectives for the range of services under their remit and is accountable for their delivery. They have the authority to make decisions within the Council’s delegations. They can also make decisions without further reference for example on complex and technical issues relating to service delivery.
The job holder proposes strategy and policy for appropriate sign off through council decision making routes. This requires regular contact with council members through working with the executive member, presenting recommendations and reporting progress/results to various council committees.
The role is part of the Directorate management team and the job holder contributes to the strategic and operational management to ensure achievement of both directorate and corporate aims and objectives.
This role is part of the emergency panning rota and the job holder is on call for out of hours emergencies.
This role is an Information Asset Owner and must carry out the responsibilities of an Owner as required and set out in the council’s ‘Information Governance/Data Protection Roles and Responsibilities Rules’.
Will deputise for the Corporate Director as required.
5 IMPACT & INFLUENCE
The role impacts in the most significant way on individual children and their families. At the most critical level they provide services to protect children from significant harm.
The services the job holder is accountable for impact on preventing children and families entering children’s social care, but when they do the extent and quality of services they receive is critical.
The job holder has influence on both the operational delivery of services and the strategic direction of these. They must work with partners in both the voluntary and private sector to develop diverse, safe and high quality social care provision to meet the needs of children.
There are many critical decisions the job holder must make in their role, for example, they make decisions on care placements and adoption, decisions that have significant long term impact for children.
The job holder designs, develops and leads multi agency strategic partnerships which all contribute to cohesive quality services for children and young people. They must communicate a clear vision for co-ordinated services across York, and provides a framework to ensure an effective and shared programme of joined up service delivery with key partners
The Department for Education requires Local Authorities to discharge its adoption services through regional adoption arrangements; as such working in partnership with other relevant authorities also in the RAA is critical; effective relationships are key. Establishing and delivering best practice in this area is essential.
Leading the development of a local emotional and mental health strategy for children and young people in York also has direct impact, setting short and long term plans that will set the standards and services provided.
The role is required to deliver Peer Challenge in other local authorities so contributes to standards of care for children in other areas.
The success of the Youth Justice Service is important in reducing crime, supporting young people with community sentences and helping to change offending behaviour.
Critically, the post holder will work closely with Members to give assurance and confidence to support effective decision making.
6 ORGANISATION
Early Help and Local Area Teams – identification of children and families who need early intervention to prevent escalation of issues, provision of the Healthy Child Service and multi-agency partnership arrangements to ensure coordinated early help
Referral and Assessment – assessment of threshold for CSC intervention
Safeguarding Interventions – development of care plans, social work support and contact centre for looked after children
Achieving Permanence – care of looked after children, fostering and adoption, recruitment and marketing for foster carers and adopters, leaving care service.
Youth Justice Service - local crime prevention programmes, help for young people at the police station if they’re arrested, help for young people and their families at court , supervision of young people serving a community sentence and stay in touch with a young person if they’re sentenced to custody.
Residential Short Breaks, Community Short Breaks and Health and Disability social workers (temporary arrangement)
Quality Assurance – independent oversight of social care provided, systems and monitoring of quality, delivery of the statutory LADO role
Project Officer – transformation projects for children’s social care, for example delivering the Centre of Excellence and Foster Care recruitment programme.
Head of RAA – oversees the effective discharge of adoption services across the sub-region; the RAA is hosted by CYC
7 HARDEST MOST DIFFICULT PART OF JOB
This is a challenging role, in both scope and complexity.
The duty as Corporate Parent can provide challenging problems particularly with finding appropriate care for the most vulnerable and challenging children. Securing and keeping placements can be highly complex and require considerable negotiating skills.
The job holder has to manage services that work with the most challenging families and young people; this is emotionally difficult as well as requiring demanding decision making where there is potentially significant risk. Making the right choices all the time brings considerable pressure on both the job holder and the people within their teams.
Managing and developing the private market for care is challenging, more provision is needed and the job holder must build capacity whilst balancing quality, quantity and costs.
8 Knowledge Skills & Experience
The role requires significant experience of senior leadership and management in children’s’ social care along with a professional social care qualification.
The job holder needs the ability to develop and deliver strategies to meet organisation objectives in a complex multi-functional organisation. They must be able to interpret complex information to develop plans and set priorities. Using high level problem solving skills to analyse information and trends, draw conclusions and prioritise decisions to manage risks.
The job holder must be experienced and highly skilled in the management of resources, large and complex budgets with the ability to identify efficiencies and value for money at a corporate and service level.
The ability to lead and motivate a large department is critical to ensure delivery of results. Outstanding interpersonal skills are needed to influence, negotiate and persuade all key partners both internal and external. Experience of developing collaborative relationships and inter-agency working is also important.
Experience of negotiating significant contracts, commissioning services and monitoring provision