Senior Practitioner

Job Description

CF Children, Education and Justice Services

Senior Pracitioner - fixed term until 20/06/2025
South Office

Salary: £42,717 - £50,550
Hours: 36 per week

We believe that every child and young person deserves the best possible start in life. Our aim is for Edinburgh’s children to be safe, healthy, nurtured, educated, active and respected. Our children's practice teams are part of the locality model of service delivery, which sees Edinburgh split into four geographical areas. Our children’s practice teams are at the forefront of providing services to help children and young people and their families deal with difficult situations at various stages in their lives.

The post-holder will undertake the full range of statutory duties of a Senior Practitioner. working with children and young people who need protection, are Looked After or are children in need, and their families/carers. They will work in strengths based and restorative ways to get alongside children, families and carers, build positive relationships, identify what they need to keep them safe and put in place plans which improve wellbeing for children, young people and their families/carers

Considerable post qualifying experience in a Children & Families practice team, including experience of. Complex Child Protection investigations. Post investigative Child Protection work with children & their families. Working with looked after and accommodated children. Presenting evidence in court. Taking a lead role in developing practice.

Very well developed assessment and communication skills (written and verbal). Direct work with children and families. Ability to manage research material and impart to others. Understanding of the content and principles of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and other relevant child care legislation. Breadth and depth of knowledge about child development, attachment and identity.

A team player - able to play a role in building and maintaining team and neighbourhood identity. Ability to keep abreast of changes procedure and legislation. Ability to understand and negotiate different levels of accountability and responsibility within joint working and consultative arrangements. Ability to understand issues and problems, to analyse and assess complex situations, often within limited timescales. ICT and keyboard skills or commitment to achieving these.

This post is regulated work with children and/or protected adults under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007. The preferred candidate will be required to join the PVG Scheme or undergo a PVG Scheme update check. Where an individual has spent a continuous period of 3 months or more out with the UK in the last 5 years, an Overseas Criminal Record Check will be required. You will be required to provide this check. An unconditional offer of employment and commencement in the post will be subject to the outcome of both these pre-employment checks being deemed satisfactory.

We're committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits that a diverse workforce with different values, beliefs, experience, and backgrounds brings to us as an organisation.

As part of our goal to improve our organisational culture and create a great place to work together for the people of Edinburgh, we want to make sure that we’re bringing the best people into our roles, not just in their skills and experience but also in their approach to work.

Requirements

To help achieve this, we’re changing the way we interview and assess candidates by moving from a competency-based interview approach to a behavioural and technical (skills for the job) based approach. This new way of interviewing will allow us to assess how you think and how you would bring Our Behaviours of Respect, Integrity and Flexibility into your ways of working.

You can find out more on Our Behaviours web page Our Behaviours – The City of Edinburgh Council

Our salary range typically reflects the initial starting salary and annually increases until it reaches the top of the range.

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