Job Description
Quality Assurance Reviewing Officer14.8 hours (flexible working considered)Salary £18,586 - £20,972County Hall, Dorchester, combined with home-working What’s in it for you:This is an exciting opportunity to join our child focussed and supportive team. We are looking for a qualified and experienced social worker/manager to join our team as a Quality Assurance Reviewing Officer (QARO). This role incorporates the statutory IRO role for Children in Care in Dorset. We are looking for someone who is passionate about improving the care experience, and outcomes for our children and young people in care. Someone who is able to ensure that children are central to their assessments, plans and can advocate and support them so their voices are heard and understood. You will be part of a stable, experienced and supportive team with opportunities for training and development. You will have regular supervision and reflective group discussions as well as developing links and professional relationships with all of our partners. We support flexible working hours and working from home. What you can expect to be doing:You will be fulfilling the statutory IRO (Independent Reviewing Officer) role for Children in Care in Dorset, as well as other Quality Assurance work. On a day to day basis this means ensuring that our children receive the service and support they need and deserve. You will be planning and chairing Child in Care reviews, ensuring the child's voice is heard, reviewing Local Authority care planning and escalating where there are issues. You will be meeting and engaging with young people and their families, building relationships and enabling their participation.Supporting and challenging operational practice through the escalation process to enable service improvement and positive outcomes for children and young people is a key part of this role. This role does involve travelling outside of Dorset to see our children and young people who are in care. The work is varied and will involve providing specialist advice and guidance to operational staff, recognition and celebration of good practice, establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with a range of professionals and partners, contribution to the quality assurance framework and supporting service improvement through the identification of themes and issues. About you:We are looking for someone who is strengths based in their approach but has high expectations for practice with children in care. You will be someone who works in a collaborative way with others, building relationships with other professionals, family members and colleagues whilst keeping the child central at all times. You will be someone who believes in meaningful participation by children and families and strives to empower them in all your work. You will be interested in new and recent legal guidance, practice research and be proactive in contributing to the team's practice development sessions.You will hold a social work qualification and have substantial post qualifying experience. This must involve experience of working directly with children and young people who are in care and/or through child protection planning. Knowledge of key legislation, care planning regulations and practice standards is a requirement for this post. Experience of chairing meetings and offering high challenge and high support are also essential skills. We need someone who has good organisational and time management skills, the ability to take their own minutes and produce child focussed minutes and recommendations as well as sound knowledge of best practice for children in care. Full details are in the person specification, job description and context statement.. Additional Information This vacancy is being advertised internally to: our employeesagency workers currently working for uscasual workers currently working for us If we cannot appoint someone, the vacancy may then open to external candidates.Employees working within a school are not considered internal applicants.This post requires significant travel. You must have a vehicle (or transport we deem suitable) available for use as needed.This post involves working with children and/or vulnerable adults and/or having access to significant information about them. It will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service check. See our .We are We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role.We are keen to make our interviews accessible. Let us know on your job application if you have a disability and need any reasonable adjustments.We also look for applicants who share . We will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant.We cannot accept CVs in the place of an application form as we need the same range of information from all our candidates. Find out more about .