Fostering Strategic Lead - Panel Advisor

Human Resources & Development - Form 35 Version 15- Issued October 2022 JOB DESCRIPTION AND PARTICULARS OF APPOINTMENT ▪ Job Title: Fostering Strategic Lead - Panel Advisor - Children's Placement Services ▪ Post Number: ▪ Grade and SCP: Band 13, SCP 39 - 43 ▪ Directorate: People Where your role fits at Shropshire Council As Shropshire Council we are rightly proud of our achievements and we have proven to be a resilient local authority in our response to the many challenges we overcome, particularly over recent years. We will be continuing this momentum with ambition and a focus on delivering our four key priorities outlined within the Shropshire Plan: Healthy People, Healthy Environment, Healthy Economy and Healthy Organisation. We are committed to achieving this by aligning everything we do to our vision 'Shropshire - living the best life'. Shropshire Council is a great place to be with opportunities for growth and development. We will enable a skilled, happy, healthy, diverse, inclusive, empowered, and proud workforce that influences and leads change, addressing any inequalities. As a member of the Fostering Service within Childrens Services, you will support the achievement of these key priorities, making a real difference to the lives of people in Shropshire. The Fostering Service works closely with all service areas to ensure that children can be supported well whilst living with Foster Carers and Connected Carers and plans for permanence can be progressed to achieve positive outcomes for children. The role involves leading development, practice and the quality assurance of Fostering reports, processes and updating policies. Overview of your role You will contribute to the achievement of both the Council's Vision of "To improve significantly the quality of life for Shropshire people" and the Directorate's Vision and Values Statement. You will also play your part in helping to deliver the Corporate Director's Service Plan. You will ensure your practice is inline with Social Work England's professional standards and have a commitment to your professional development and maintaining your registration. You provide the necessary support to Foster Carers and arrange appropriate services in accordance with Council Policies, Procedures and Statutory Regulations. You will take a lead on quality assurance and practice development in Fostering. You will work with business support colleagues to co-ordinate the Council's Fostering Panel, ensuring fostering work is considered effectively, within legal requirements and the service's policies. The postholder will ensure the appropriate complex legislation, regulations, guidance and procedures are implemented in respect of Fostering Panels through the provision of high-quality professional information, advice and guidance to the Fostering Panel and Agency Decision Makers (ADM). As Fostering Panel Adviser, the postholder will ensure that individuals who have the appropriate qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience are recruited to the roles of Panel Chairperson(s), Panel Vice Chairperson (s) and Panel Members. This includes responsibility for the recruitment, induction, training and annual appraisal process in line with the Policies, Procedures & Guidance. Who will your manager be and what will you be responsible for? You will be: ▪ Responsible and accountable for 6 FTE members of staff and support practitioners, acting in a supervisory/managerial capacity, monitoring performance, supporting development and undertaking annual appraisals. ▪ Expected to lead and/or contribute to a range of projects and build relations with both internal and external partners in order achieve specified outcomes but will not have direct authority over those involved. ▪ Responsible for managing budget ▪ Responsible for preparing responses in line with Shropshire Council's corporate processes and national/regulatory/statutory processes (e.g. complaints, MP enquiries, Information Governance requests, customer enquiries, media enquiries, HR staff investigations etc..). These responses should be in line with the quality and timescale expectations set out within Shropshire Council's published procedures and/or case allocation emails and discussions. ▪ Responsible for completing within expected timescales all mandatory corporate and role specific training. Training requirements will be detailed in your corporate induction and Personal Development Plan (PDP). Courses are accessed via the council Learning Management System via the Intranet. ▪ Responsible for the leadership and management of the Shropshire Fostering Panel, responsible for supporting both Social Workers and Family Support Workers development, developing practice across the service, ensuring the delivery of efficient, responsive and effective and timely intervention services to all Shropshire Foster Carers. What will you be doing? ▪ Delivering upon national and local priorities and policy objectives including the achievement of Key Performance indicators in conjunction with the wider children's services senior leadership team. ▪ Actively contributing to and delivering on Shropshire's strategic developments for Children's Placement Service by increasing and retaining sufficiency within fostering. • Regular auditing of Fostering records, to report on quality assurance, service performance, areas of strength and lead on practice development. Report on performance in relation to National and local indicators, provide reports as required and more specifically annual fostering reports and fostering panel reports ▪ Increasing opportunities for Foster Carer engagement and feedback at all stages of the Foster Carers journey, embedding within practice. • Act as professional advisor to fostering panel, give advice on all fostering related activity, share in-depth knowledge of regulations, statutory guidance, case law and associated policy and practice. Deliver on panel training days that support practice • Ensure that panel procedures meet the legislative and national minimum standards requirement in line with Fostering Regulations, Standards and Guidance and Fostering policies are updated as required. • Recruit and induct new members to the panel central list and ensure the panel membership list is correctly constituted, and reflects a diverse membership in relation to gender, sexuality, race, disability and experience. • To arrange and participate in panel member annual appraisals alongside the panel chair • Work with business administration colleagues to ensure panel minutes and administration processes are accurate, effective and of sufficient quality. • To work with the agency decision maker to ensure that representations to the Agency or to the Independent Review Mechanism are dealt with appropriately. • Quality assurance of all reports and documents presented to panel and provide feedback on quality to Team Manager and Social Workers (prior to cases being presented to the panel). Identifying key issues that may require consideration by the Panel Chair. • To advise on the need to withdraw or defer cases in discussion with the Team Manager / Panel Chair where there are concerns. • Provide quarterly report for the agency decision maker in relation to the practice, policy and organisational issues raised by Panel and from Panel Advisors own observations. ▪ Responsible for the provision of robust support to carers that supports placement stability. ▪ Responsible for supporting the placement coordinators identifying internal foster carers and supporting children stepping down from residential provision. ▪ Responsible for supporting the Mockingbird family model of fostering and maintaining the fidelity of the model ▪ Practice inline with Social Work England's professional standards and have a commitment to your professional development. • To facilitate allocation and workload management for team to ensure the sufficiency of foster care placements and to contribute to placement stability for all Shropshire Children Looked After by the Local Authority. • To convene the review process for existing foster carers and where necessary identify additional learning and development opportunities for carers to increase their skill base or to make recommendations to fostering panel and Agency Decision Maker where it is evident that a carer is not able to fulfil National Minimum Standards. • To chair cause for concerns meetings and placement consolidation meetings to support placement stability • To liaise with LADO and ensure Schedule 7 notifications for the reporting to Ofsted and other agencies are completed • Supporting the progression of childrens care plans for permanence and ensuring placement stability and compliance with all Shropshire policies and procedures in relation to Children Looked After by the Local Authority. • To agree, review, monitor and approve payments to Foster Carers and contribute to financial monitoring of the councils budget. To be responsible for the team's budget in accordance with financial regulations and the council's strategies for best value • To contribute to planning, access, and delivery of services for children and carers, such as leaving care services, Shropshire Foster Carer Association, Disabled Children's Team, Health Services, Adult with Learning Difficulties, Community Mental ...