Advanced Adolescent Practitioner ( Adolescent Service)

Job introduction

Are you a creative and motivated person looking to build meaningful relationships with young people and practitioners within a well-established and skilled team?

Are you looking to make a real difference by working in partnership with young people and their networks to reduce harms and promote wellbeing?

Are you looking for a rewarding, varied role where each day can offer diversity, challenge and success?

For an informal discussion, please contact Emily Batchelor emily.batchelor@brighton-hove.gov.uk

About the role

BHCC Adolescent Service is pleased to announce that seeking an Advanced Practitioner to join our service.

The posts sit within our already well developed, professional and collaborative team, the Adolescent Social Work team. This skilled and well-established team provides a vital service to children, young people and their families within the city.

The Adolescent Social Work team works in partnership with other teams in our service such as Youth Offending, Engagement and Support, RUOK Drug and Alcohol Team and Family and Adolescent Wellbeing Team. The team also works with community organisations to support a wide number of young people across the city.

We are looking to recruit a motivated, reflective, creative practitioner who is committed to building strength-based relationships with young people. Our model of practice focuses on creating relationships with young people and their networks, to build intervention plans with the young people being at the forefront of how the interventions are undertaken and reviewed. We are looking for people who enjoy working with adolescent aged young people, who can use their skills and knowledge to deliver evidenced-based structured interventions and be part of service development.

You will need to be committed to playing a part in dismantling racist structures and challenging racial inequality and all forms of discrimination – this is a lead focus of BHCC Adolescent Service and something that each team within the service is actively working to address through individual and collective learning and development.

This position is full-time– based at our central Brighton office. We operate a hybrid style of working; we are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our young people. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee’s work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements and agreed with your manager in advance of joining.

As an Adolescent Advanced Practitioner within the team you will work closely with the manager to provide leadership within the Adolescent Social Work Team. You will provide 121 supervisions to practitioners in the team as well as taking an active role in delivering and partaking in group supervision and the functioning and development of the team. You will work with the multiagency practitioners within the adolescent service and partner agencies, to identify and meet children & young people's needs. A focus of your supervision of staff members will be supporting staff to help families and avoid children coming into care.

We take a creative and innovative approach in responding to young people's needs, focussing on the effectiveness of trusting relationships, particularly with those young people with experience of trauma and attachment difficulties. This can require workers to utilise their skills and knowledge in undertaking tasks which sit outside traditional specialist roles. We believe in a "Team Around the Worker" model, which involves our workers receiving or offering specialist support and guidance within complex networks.

The post holder will support practitioners to co-create and deliver interventions You will support staff to develop their skills and knowledge by delivering attuned and purposeful supervision and by developing and delivering training to our staff and across the wider service.

You will assist staff in preparing for a range of statutory meetings and who work closely with parents and carers to build a more robust network for young people.

The role offers opportunities to deliver training and consultation across the city. You will also have access to the council's comprehensive learning and development offer. Our service is committed to ensuring equality of provision and we are proud to work within Brighton & Hove, which has pledged to be an anti-racist council.

You will have had substantial experience of providing supervision, developing services within teams, working with adolescents, including experience and knowledge of risk assessment, safeguarding procedures and child development. For full details of essential criteria, please see attached job description and person specification.

At Brighton & Hove City Council we offer staff a range of benefits. If you choose to work for us, in return we can offer you:

• A competitive salary
• Career average pension scheme
• Generous holiday (23 days rising to 25 days after 5 years)
• An opportunity to enhance your knowledge and skills
• A range of other staff benefits

Please read our Apply for a job at the council (brighton-hove.gov.uk) pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to complete your education and work history and provide answers to some shortlisting questions. Your answers to the shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our guidance here (Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

Additional information

Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us

Company information

Encouraging a diverse workforce

Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and How we create a fair and inclusive workplace.

Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.