Working in Medway

Letter from Ian Sutherland

Thank you for your interest in working in Medway Children’s Services. I am proud to be the Director of Children and Adult Services in a place which strives to put children at the centre of everything we do. We have faced some difficult challenges over the past six months and were very disappointed in our Ofsted ruling following our inspection in July 2019. We are determined to improve our services and we have the support of our Council to do this quickly – we have already taken positive steps with additional resources to help us to reduce our workloads and improve our practice.

We have a great team of staff who were commended by Ofsted for their dedication and commitment and we will continue to support them to do a good job.

We passionately believe in supporting children to remain in their families wherever possible. We have a commitment to work alongside children and their families and know that building relationships are the key to achieving positive change.

Medway is an exciting place to work and will offer you a range of challenges and experiences, which will develop your career. We know that good support, training and development opportunities, along with manageable workloads are what motivates practitioners.

We are fully committed to work with our frontline staff to help to influence, shape and develop our improvement journey.

If you want to make a positive difference to children and families, please come and be part of our team.  Together, we can help to deliver the Council priority of ‘Supporting Medway’s people to realise their potential’.

Ian Sutherland, Director of People (Children and Adults)

Related links

Council plan 2016 – 2021

Medway Children and Young People’s Plan 2019-2024

An independent report and recommendations from the Commissioner for Children’s Services in Medway.

Our Vision

Our services will support children and young people in Medway to feel safe and secure, and any decision we make will be in their best interests and made in collaboration with them and their families. We want children and families to be able to access the right services at the right time to meet their needs, from robust early help services through to intensive and purposeful interventions to support children in need of protection and their families, with a focus on achieving a permanent family for children in care.

We will achieve this by building strong relationships and working with children and families, recruiting a skilled and permanent workforce, and establishing strong networks with our partners to maximise the use of all available resources.

We want to create a culture of ambition, professional respect and commitment to deliver quality services which achieve positive change for families.

Supervision and Management Oversight

Our firstline leaders are known as Team Managers. Each Team Manager is responsible for the supervision of 6 Social Workers.

We expect our firstline leaders to provide robust oversight and management grip on case work so that social workers are fully supported in their practice.Supervision and Management Oversight.

Our Practice Model

Medway are introducing the Signs of Safety practice model which will be launched in Spring 2020 and supported by a programme of training for all staff and partners across our services.

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Our Service

Our delivery of children’s services is informed by our vision of achieving positive change for families we work with so that children are safe, services are effective, and families feel supported and enabled to care for their children.

We have established small area-based social work teams, each with one team manager and six social workers. These work with children and families, following assessment, throughout their engagement with statutory social work.

We are committed to a model of practice based on the principles of a relationship and strengths-based approach.  To support this approach we are rolling out ‘Signs of Safety’ training for all our practitioners. This is aimed at building stronger, more resilient families that can safely care for children and young people.

First Response and early help service

First Response is the first point of contact for professionals and members of the public to tell us their concerns or worries about a child.

The Single Point of Access (SPA) for Children and Families is our front door to early help and statutory social work services. To ensure the right children and young people get the right service, qualified social workers, early help co-ordinators and education safeguarding staff assess against the threshold criteria, to make timely and proportionate decisions, led by social work managers. The SPA receives information through an online referral form or directly by phone.

Where more information is needed to make the right decision we have a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) which includes partners from police, education, health and early help to make the best decision for children.  There is additional involvement of virtual partners from Probation and Housing to improve information sharing at the front door.

Comprehensive child and family assessments are undertaken by one of our five assessment teams.

Our assessment teams are led by a practice manager with six qualified social workers, one of whom may be newly qualified.  We promote joint working to share risk assessment and enable different perspectives on each family while providing intervention as early as possible during the assessment.  With strong links to partners in early help and universal service the outcome is the right service at the right time.

Early Help promotes the wellbeing and resilience of families in a timely way by offering high quality and effective services.

As an early help system, we wholeheartedly believe that a longer-term plan is essential to provide the foresight and resilience required to enable us to sustain our strong performance and further reform key areas of early intervention and prevention locally.

At the heart of our strategy and plan is an unswerving commitment to:

  1. Deliver an effective system as a collaboration that our partners and families understand.
  2. Optimise relevant skill, knowledge and resources through joint action, rather than developing a plan that centres largely upon the activities of a single service.

Our plan clearly sets out how we will deliver against the core objectives of an early help system to:

  1. Prevent and reduce youth crime.
  2. Safeguard children and young people at risk (level 3).
  3. Improve school attendance and reduce exclusions.
  4. Increase positive activities and places for young people to go and achieve.

Early Help includes a range of different services working with children and families with multiple and complex needs. These services include:

◗ The Youth Service

◗ The Children and Family Hubs (including early years, parenting and family support)

We deliver our work through the ‘Strengthening Families’ framework and deliver it using the ‘Solution Focused’ approach. We also work an area based model ensuring we are closer to the families, communities and the partnerships we support.

Adolescent Service

This service provides a whole systems response to vulnerable young people ages 11-17, or those young people under 11 who are caught up in Contextual Safeguarding who may present to one or more services as needing help, support and or protection.

Those young people are likely to be at risk of or actually experiencing a number of adversities, for example: repeated missing from home episodes, repeated fixed term or permanent exclusions or absence from a school place, family breakdown, homelessness, substance misuse, exploitation – CSE/gangs/County Lines/trafficking and poor mental health,

The young people meeting the criteria for the Adolescent Service will most usually present as being on the edge of care as a result of one or more of the above factors.  They are likely to require a period of intensive intervention and ongoing support for as long as it is required.

The scope of the work will cover young people who meet criteria for statutory service or targeted Early Help provision, and allocations will be made according to the ‘fit’ between the needs of the young person concerned although, where statutory interventions are required e.g. Section 47 (S47) enquiries or initiating legal proceedings, this work will be completed by qualified social workers within the Adolescent Service and/or with supplementary support by either an adolescent worker, youth worker or housing officer.

Children’s Social Work Teams

Social Work for vulnerable children in need, children in need of protection and including those subject to Public Law Outline (PLO) is provided through area-based Children Social Work Teams who are aligned to four areas of Medway.

This means that we work closely with the home community of the family supporting children to remain within their families and keeping in touch with them when being looked after is the right decision.

Our area-based teams are led by a Team Manager with six qualified social workers one of whom may be newly qualified, plus dedicated administrative support.

Practitioners work with children through child in need and child protection plans including sometimes care proceedings where the court deems that the children don’t need to be separated from their parents at immediately.

Social workers have a varied caseload that allows them the opportunity to work with a variety of children in the social care system and develop a wide range of knowledge and expertise. Through our established partnerships with schools, Early Help and universal services once our work with families is done, we ensure that support continues.

Medway uses use the Signs of Safety Model to organise and describe our work with children and families throughout our case records; the model is used in our child protection conferences. Specific models of assessment and intervention are used for identified needs such as the Graded Care Profile or Parenting Assessments and Direct work with Children. Our professional development offer includes training in all these areas and also the Practice Education of social work students.

0-25 Disability Service

The 0-25 disability team provide specialist services to a defined group of children, young people and adults under the age of 25. Medway’s local offer is published on Medway Council’s website.

The service is accessible to people living in Medway who have a substantial and long term disability and meet the threshold of the eligibility criteria for services and support provided by the 0-25 Disability Team.

The team

The team is led by an area social work manager and is primarily made up of experienced social work practitioners, occupational therapists and family workers. They work in close partnership with education, health, housing and voluntary organisations to ensure that children, young people and adults who access support receive a good standard of service. The social workers are passionate about making a difference and are committed to ensuring all of the young people have a smooth transition to adulthood and are signposted to services within the community.

Quality Assurance and associated services

This service is responsible for embedding a Quality Assurance Framework that is focussed on the lived experience of the child, young person and family based on an assessment of need and risk.  That all children, young people and families receive focused, purposeful and evidence based interventions for which this service has a quality assurance function. This Service also sits alongside the Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership (MSCP).

We also have responsibility for the quality assurance and audit of social work practice, as a critical friend, to assist with improvements in practice and service delivery.   This function is largely carried out by the Quality Assurance Team.

Medway has a Principal Social Worker and four Advanced Practitioners who take the professional lead across children’s services, supporting and advising on the quality of practice.

The Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) team oversee and co-ordinate the management of allegations made against professionals who work with children.  LADO is a small team consisting of two LADOs and a Senior LADO responsible for all allegation management, offering advice and guidance to all Medway organisations that provide a service to children, including the voluntary sector.

The Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) team consists of one Manager and seven IRO’s, whose statutory duties include chairing the child’s review and monitoring the child’s case on an ongoing basis.

We have a Child Protection (CP) Conferencing Chair team which consists of one Manager and eight CP Chairs, who are responsible for specialising in the facilitation of CP Conferences and reviewing CP plans.

The Subject Access Request (SAR) team consists of two social workers who carefully manage all children’s services SARs holding expertise under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Children in Care

The Children in Care Service provides ongoing support and services to all children for whom there is no viable plan to return home.  The Children in Care Service also receives referrals for separate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and provides the planning and support service for those children.

The Children in Care Service provide a 0-16 years old service for children and young people who have been looked after before the age of 16.  Young people will transfer to the 16+ Leaving Care specialist team when they reach 16 years unless there is a clear rationale for them to remain with their Children in Care social worker e.g. good relationship with social worker, and a change of worker during GCSEs would not be in child’s interest.

A Leaving Care Personal Advisor will be allocated alongside the Social Worker from the age of 16, who will then remain the allocated Personal Advisor after the young person reaches 18 and beyond.  The Children in Care Teams and the Leaving Care service will link and work closely with the Adolescent Service.

Children in Care Service will be responsible for court proceedings for children following an Interim Care Order being granted, provision of services to children in Section 20 care who have no plan to return home, formation and implementation of the permanency plans for children and professional abuse and complex abuse investigations, for children allocated in the team.

Leaving Care 16 plus team

The leaving care team support young people aged 16 to 25 who have left the care of Medway Council but remain entitled to leaving care support.  This includes support with housing applications, access to education, employment and benefits as well as emotional health and wellbeing.

Fostering Service

The fostering service consist of two teams; one team are responsible for recruitment, assessment, ongoing support and supervision of foster carers, supporting lodging providers and assessment and support of private fostering arrangements. The other team are responsible for the assessment of all proposed connected carers and viability to special guardianship assessments.

Adoption Service

The adoption team finds permanent new families for children who can no longer live with their birth parents.  Adoption staff recruit, assess and prepare adopters, support adopted children and special guardians, their families, birth families and adopted adults.

Medway Virtual School (MVS)

The Medway Virtual School is led by the Virtual Headteacher, who acts as a local authority champion to promote the educational achievement of Looked After Children and Young Care Leavers, working with schools, carers and social workers to help these pupils achieve educational outcomes comparable to their peers.  When our children and young care leavers receive a high quality education there is a strong foundation for widening and improving their opportunities in life.

Parklands

Parklands is a residential multi-agency respite centre for children with a disability which also provides day care facilities.

Our Service

Our delivery of children’s services is informed by our vision of achieving positive change for families we work with so that children are safe, services are effective, and families feel supported and enabled to care for their children.

We have established small area-based social work teams, each with one team manager and six social workers. These work with children and families, following assessment, throughout their engagement with statutory social work.

We are committed to a model of practice based on the principles of a relationship and strengths-based approach.  To support this approach we are rolling out ‘Signs of Safety’ training for all our practitioners. This is aimed at building stronger, more resilient families that can safely care for children and young people.

First Response and early help service

First Response is the first point of contact for professionals and members of the public to tell us their concerns or worries about a child.

The Single Point of Access (SPA) for Children and Families is our front door to early help and statutory social work services. To ensure the right children and young people get the right service, qualified social workers, early help co-ordinators and education safeguarding staff assess against the threshold criteria, to make timely and proportionate decisions, led by social work managers. The SPA receives information through an online referral form or directly by phone.

Where more information is needed to make the right decision we have a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) which includes partners from police, education, health and early help to make the best decision for children.  There is additional involvement of virtual partners from Probation and Housing to improve information sharing at the front door.

Comprehensive child and family assessments are undertaken by one of our five assessment teams.

Our assessment teams are led by a practice manager with six qualified social workers, one of whom may be newly qualified.  We promote joint working to share risk assessment and enable different perspectives on each family while providing intervention as early as possible during the assessment.  With strong links to partners in early help and universal service the outcome is the right service at the right time.

Early Help promotes the wellbeing and resilience of families in a timely way by offering high quality and effective services.

As an early help system, we wholeheartedly believe that a longer-term plan is essential to provide the foresight and resilience required to enable us to sustain our strong performance and further reform key areas of early intervention and prevention locally.

At the heart of our strategy and plan is an unswerving commitment to:

  1. Deliver an effective system as a collaboration that our partners and families understand.
  2. Optimise relevant skill, knowledge and resources through joint action, rather than developing a plan that centres largely upon the activities of a single service.

Our plan clearly sets out how we will deliver against the core objectives of an early help system to:

  1. Prevent and reduce youth crime.
  2. Safeguard children and young people at risk (level 3).
  3. Improve school attendance and reduce exclusions.
  4. Increase positive activities and places for young people to go and achieve.

Early Help includes a range of different services working with children and families with multiple and complex needs. These services include:

◗ The Youth Service

◗ The Children and Family Hubs (including early years, parenting and family support)

We deliver our work through the ‘Strengthening Families’ framework and deliver it using the ‘Solution Focused’ approach. We also work an area based model ensuring we are closer to the families, communities and the partnerships we support.

Adolescent Service

This service provides a whole systems response to vulnerable young people ages 11-17, or those young people under 11 who are caught up in Contextual Safeguarding who may present to one or more services as needing help, support and or protection.

Those young people are likely to be at risk of or actually experiencing a number of adversities, for example: repeated missing from home episodes, repeated fixed term or permanent exclusions or absence from a school place, family breakdown, homelessness, substance misuse, exploitation – CSE/gangs/County Lines/trafficking and poor mental health,

The young people meeting the criteria for the Adolescent Service will most usually present as being on the edge of care as a result of one or more of the above factors.  They are likely to require a period of intensive intervention and ongoing support for as long as it is required.

The scope of the work will cover young people who meet criteria for statutory service or targeted Early Help provision, and allocations will be made according to the ‘fit’ between the needs of the young person concerned although, where statutory interventions are required e.g. Section 47 (S47) enquiries or initiating legal proceedings, this work will be completed by qualified social workers within the Adolescent Service and/or with supplementary support by either an adolescent worker, youth worker or housing officer.

Children’s Social Work Teams

Social Work for vulnerable children in need, children in need of protection and including those subject to Public Law Outline (PLO) is provided through area-based Children Social Work Teams who are aligned to four areas of Medway.

This means that we work closely with the home community of the family supporting children to remain within their families and keeping in touch with them when being looked after is the right decision.

Our area-based teams are led by a Team Manager with six qualified social workers one of whom may be newly qualified, plus dedicated administrative support.

Practitioners work with children through child in need and child protection plans including sometimes care proceedings where the court deems that the children don’t need to be separated from their parents at immediately.

Social workers have a varied caseload that allows them the opportunity to work with a variety of children in the social care system and develop a wide range of knowledge and expertise. Through our established partnerships with schools, Early Help and universal services once our work with families is done, we ensure that support continues.

Medway uses use the Signs of Safety Model to organise and describe our work with children and families throughout our case records; the model is used in our child protection conferences. Specific models of assessment and intervention are used for identified needs such as the Graded Care Profile or Parenting Assessments and Direct work with Children. Our professional development offer includes training in all these areas and also the Practice Education of social work students.

0-25 Disability Service

The 0-25 disability team provide specialist services to a defined group of children, young people and adults under the age of 25. Medway’s local offer is published on Medway Council’s website.

The service is accessible to people living in Medway who have a substantial and long term disability and meet the threshold of the eligibility criteria for services and support provided by the 0-25 Disability Team.

The team

The team is led by an area social work manager and is primarily made up of experienced social work practitioners, occupational therapists and family workers. They work in close partnership with education, health, housing and voluntary organisations to ensure that children, young people and adults who access support receive a good standard of service. The social workers are passionate about making a difference and are committed to ensuring all of the young people have a smooth transition to adulthood and are signposted to services within the community.

Quality Assurance and associated services

This service is responsible for embedding a Quality Assurance Framework that is focussed on the lived experience of the child, young person and family based on an assessment of need and risk.  That all children, young people and families receive focused, purposeful and evidence based interventions for which this service has a quality assurance function. This Service also sits alongside the Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership (MSCP).

We also have responsibility for the quality assurance and audit of social work practice, as a critical friend, to assist with improvements in practice and service delivery.   This function is largely carried out by the Quality Assurance Team.

Medway has a Principal Social Worker and four Advanced Practitioners who take the professional lead across children’s services, supporting and advising on the quality of practice.

The Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) team oversee and co-ordinate the management of allegations made against professionals who work with children.  LADO is a small team consisting of two LADOs and a Senior LADO responsible for all allegation management, offering advice and guidance to all Medway organisations that provide a service to children, including the voluntary sector.

The Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) team consists of one Manager and seven IRO’s, whose statutory duties include chairing the child’s review and monitoring the child’s case on an ongoing basis.

We have a Child Protection (CP) Conferencing Chair team which consists of one Manager and eight CP Chairs, who are responsible for specialising in the facilitation of CP Conferences and reviewing CP plans.

The Subject Access Request (SAR) team consists of two social workers who carefully manage all children’s services SARs holding expertise under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Children in Care

The Children in Care Service provides ongoing support and services to all children for whom there is no viable plan to return home.  The Children in Care Service also receives referrals for separate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and provides the planning and support service for those children.

The Children in Care Service provide a 0-16 years old service for children and young people who have been looked after before the age of 16.  Young people will transfer to the 16+ Leaving Care specialist team when they reach 16 years unless there is a clear rationale for them to remain with their Children in Care social worker e.g. good relationship with social worker, and a change of worker during GCSEs would not be in child’s interest.

A Leaving Care Personal Advisor will be allocated alongside the Social Worker from the age of 16, who will then remain the allocated Personal Advisor after the young person reaches 18 and beyond.  The Children in Care Teams and the Leaving Care service will link and work closely with the Adolescent Service.

Children in Care Service will be responsible for court proceedings for children following an Interim Care Order being granted, provision of services to children in Section 20 care who have no plan to return home, formation and implementation of the permanency plans for children and professional abuse and complex abuse investigations, for children allocated in the team.

Leaving Care 16 plus team

The leaving care team support young people aged 16 to 25 who have left the care of Medway Council but remain entitled to leaving care support.  This includes support with housing applications, access to education, employment and benefits as well as emotional health and wellbeing.

Fostering Service

The fostering service consist of two teams; one team are responsible for recruitment, assessment, ongoing support and supervision of foster carers, supporting lodging providers and assessment and support of private fostering arrangements. The other team are responsible for the assessment of all proposed connected carers and viability to special guardianship assessments.

Adoption Service

The adoption team finds permanent new families for children who can no longer live with their birth parents.  Adoption staff recruit, assess and prepare adopters, support adopted children and special guardians, their families, birth families and adopted adults.

Medway Virtual School (MVS)

The Medway Virtual School is led by the Virtual Headteacher, who acts as a local authority champion to promote the educational achievement of Looked After Children and Young Care Leavers, working with schools, carers and social workers to help these pupils achieve educational outcomes comparable to their peers.  When our children and young care leavers receive a high quality education there is a strong foundation for widening and improving their opportunities in life.

Parklands

Parklands is a residential multi-agency respite centre for children with a disability which also provides day care facilities.

Download team structure chart
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Our Staff Say

Professional Development

Professional Support and Development

At Medway we are committed to social work values and recognise social workers are our most important resource. We continue to invest in practice and development to ensure social workers have the right knowledge and skills, so they can deliver highly effective interventions and outcomes for children and young people. We offer a wealth of opportunities to help you with your continuous professional development and will help support you through:-

 

Professional Support

We are committed to establishing a skilled, permanent social care workforce. Medway Social Work Academy has a programme of training and support for NQSWs, qualified and experienced practitioners and managers. The Academy has strong links with local universities and leading London universities, who are social work educators.

We are implementing Signs of Safety as our practice model which will be supported by an extensive programme of training.  This will be enhanced by a core offer of skills and knowledge based training programme relevant to the individual worker and service needs.

Practice Educating is encouraged to support the learning culture

Leadership programmes are available and we will be focused on developing leadership in our first line managers.

Induction

You will receive an induction programme to ensure you understand Medway’s approach to working with children and families.

Medway Children and Adults Social Care Academy

 

The aims of the Academy are to:

  • Attract
  • Recruit
  • Develop and
  • Retain

The Academy is forging links with Higher Education Institutions, through the Teaching Partnership, other internal and external partners, such as, the Police Protection team, Legal Services, Housing, Commissioning and Public Health, to name a few, so that partnership working forms a key part of the workforce development plan.

Kent, Medway and South East England Teaching Partnership

Medway has been successful as the lead partner to obtain funding for the Kent – Medway and South East England Teaching Partnership, with Kent County Council, the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University from April 2018- March 2020.

Through the Kent – Medway and South East England Teaching Partnership, the local authorities and universities will develop joint approaches to recruitment, curriculum development and delivery, to meet identified needs both for students and qualified social workers.

All of our professional development resources are linked to the Professional Capabilities Framework (‘PCF’) and the Knowledge & Skills Statement (‘KSS’) ensuring our workforce is well equipped to deal with not only the local context but the national one, when undertaking any type of development.

To find out more visit https://www.medway.gov.uk/socialworkteachingpartnership

Career Progression Pathway

Our career progression scheme provides a mechanism for social workers to be assessed against the Council’s career progression framework alongside the Council’s performance review process..

The scheme allows social workers to demonstrate their ability against the criteria for progression and advance through the career grade.  Social Workers who aspire to managerial roles will be supported in their transition through a wealth of opportunities, including coaching, training and qualifications.

Locally agreed cost of living rises will be applied as and when awarded.

Progression between Levels

Progression from Social Worker to Senior Practitioner will be dependant on the employee demonstrating they have met the minimum standards for progression. This will be assessed annually.

In addition, the employee must have –

  • a performance level of achieving or above
  • not been subject to any formal capability or disciplinary process
  • satisfactorily completed a 6 month probationary period

Progression to the role of Practice Manager, Team Manager and Area Manager is through an application process.

Professional Development

Professional Support and Development

At Medway we are committed to social work values and recognise social workers are our most important resource. We continue to invest in practice and development to ensure social workers have the right knowledge and skills, so they can deliver highly effective interventions and outcomes for children and young people. We offer a wealth of opportunities to help you with your continuous professional development and will help support you through:-

 

Professional Support

We are committed to establishing a skilled, permanent social care workforce. Medway Social Work Academy has a programme of training and support for NQSWs, qualified and experienced practitioners and managers. The Academy has strong links with local universities and leading London universities, who are social work educators.

We are implementing Signs of Safety as our practice model which will be supported by an extensive programme of training.  This will be enhanced by a core offer of skills and knowledge based training programme relevant to the individual worker and service needs.

Practice Educating is encouraged to support the learning culture

Leadership programmes are available and we will be focused on developing leadership in our first line managers.

Induction

You will receive an induction programme to ensure you understand Medway’s approach to working with children and families.

Medway Children and Adults Social Care Academy

 

The aims of the Academy are to:

  • Attract
  • Recruit
  • Develop and
  • Retain

The Academy is forging links with Higher Education Institutions, through the Teaching Partnership, other internal and external partners, such as, the Police Protection team, Legal Services, Housing, Commissioning and Public Health, to name a few, so that partnership working forms a key part of the workforce development plan.

Kent, Medway and South East England Teaching Partnership

Medway has been successful as the lead partner to obtain funding for the Kent – Medway and South East England Teaching Partnership, with Kent County Council, the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University from April 2018- March 2020.

Through the Kent – Medway and South East England Teaching Partnership, the local authorities and universities will develop joint approaches to recruitment, curriculum development and delivery, to meet identified needs both for students and qualified social workers.

All of our professional development resources are linked to the Professional Capabilities Framework (‘PCF’) and the Knowledge & Skills Statement (‘KSS’) ensuring our workforce is well equipped to deal with not only the local context but the national one, when undertaking any type of development.

To find out more visit https://www.medway.gov.uk/socialworkteachingpartnership

Career Progression Pathway

Our career progression scheme provides a mechanism for social workers to be assessed against the Council’s career progression framework alongside the Council’s performance review process..

The scheme allows social workers to demonstrate their ability against the criteria for progression and advance through the career grade.  Social Workers who aspire to managerial roles will be supported in their transition through a wealth of opportunities, including coaching, training and qualifications.

Locally agreed cost of living rises will be applied as and when awarded.

Progression between Levels

Progression from Social Worker to Senior Practitioner will be dependant on the employee demonstrating they have met the minimum standards for progression. This will be assessed annually.

In addition, the employee must have –

  • a performance level of achieving or above
  • not been subject to any formal capability or disciplinary process
  • satisfactorily completed a 6 month probationary period

Progression to the role of Practice Manager, Team Manager and Area Manager is through an application process.

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