Purpose of the post
•Ensure that the people of Gwynedd are at the heart of everything we do.
•Helping vulnerable individuals to live their lives in the way they want to live.
•Assess the needs of adults and their carers in accordance with the requirements of the Social Care and Well-being Act 2014 and other relevant legislation and guidelines.
•Providing an Information, Advice and Support service to citizens to enable them to meet personal objectives.
•Helping people identify solutions, prevent dependency and promote independence.
•Providing information regarding the supportive resources available in the community, from the third sector, the Council and the Health Board in order to enable citizens to live as independently as possible and improve their quality of life.
•Ensuring that the needs of individuals are met in accordance with the Council's safeguarding arrangements and the statutory responsibilities.
Responsibility for functions
•Finance - Providing practical and appropriate advice and guidance to service users to facilitate effective financial management in the Service.
•Equipment – Responsibility for any specialist equipment used to carry out the job
Main duties
Level 1 – Newly Qualified Social Worker (General Duties)
•Practice within the relevant legislative frameworks and guidance that underpin the provision of social services in Wales
•Apply the Code of Professional Practice as a registered professional
•Consolidate and develop the skills and knowledge gained through formal qualification through mentoring and guidance of experienced practitioners.
•Attend relevant first 3 years in practice workshops and complete the Consolidation Programme. Work with mentor to develop practice.
•Actively participate in regular reflective supervision and consult with your line manager and other experienced colleagues. Continue to develop your social work practice through ongoing reflection.
•Manage and be accountable for your own work
•Work collaboratively within multi-disciplinary and multi organisational teams, networks, and systems with guidance from your line manager and other more experienced colleagues.
•Exercise professional judgement and decision making increasing in complexity within the first 3 years of practice through mentoring and supervision from your line manager or guidance from more experienced colleagues.
•Manage ethical issues, dilemmas, and conflicts, with guidance and support increasing in complexity during the 3 years.
•Prepare and present professional reports and records through guidance from your line manager and more experienced social workers, ensuring information is correct, consistent and shared safely and appropriately
•Support and empower people to participate in decision making processes
•Advocate with and on behalf of, individuals, families, carers, groups and communities
•Work collaboratively with people in need of care and support, their carers and other professionals increasing in complexity throughout the 3 years
•Undertake strength-based assessments and practice in a way that promotes self-determination, independence and empowerment under the guidance of your line manager or other experienced colleagues and co working on more complex cases.
•Undertake outcome focussed assessment using a ‘What Matters ‘conversation to identify what is important to that individual, eligible needs and to develop outcome focussed plans that facilitate care and support with guidance from you line manager and other more experienced colleagues and co working on more complex cases.
•Prepare, produce, implement, and evaluate plans with individuals, families, carers, groups, communities, and professional colleagues under guidance from your line manager or more experienced social workers.
•Identify, assess and investigate an Adult or Child at risk in accordance with relevant legislation and the Wales Safeguarding Procedures guided by line manager or more experienced colleagues and co-working on more complex cases.
Level 2 – Social Worker (General Duties)
•Practice within the relevant legislative frameworks and guidance that underpin the provision of social services in Wales
•Apply the Code of Professional Practice as a registered professional
•Maintain up to date knowledge and maintain own professional development
•Develop social work practice through supervision and reflection
•Manage and be accountable for your own work
•Work collaboratively within multi-disciplinary and multi organisational teams, networks, and systems
•Exercise professional judgement and decision making in complex situations
•Manage ethical issues, dilemmas, and conflicts in complex situations
•Prepare and present professional reports and records ensuring information is correct, consistent, and shared safely and appropriately.
•Support people to participate in decision making processes
•Advocate with and on behalf of, individuals, families, carers, groups and communities
•Work collaboratively with people in need of care and support, their carers and other professionals in complex situations
•Undertake strength-based assessments and practice in a way that promotes self-determination, independence, and empowerment.
•Undertake outcome focussed assessment using a ‘What Matters ‘conversation to identify what is important to that individual, eligible needs and to develop outcome focussed plans that facilitate care and support.
•Prepare, produce, implement, and evaluate plans with individuals, families, carers, groups, communities, and professional colleagues.
•Identify, assess and investigate an Adult or Child at risk in accordance with relevant legislation and the Wales Safeguarding Procedures,
Level 3 – Lead Social Worker (General Duties)
•Practice within the relevant legislative frameworks and guidance that underpin the provision of social services in Wales
•Apply the Code of Professional Practice as a registered professional
•Maintain up to date knowledge and maintain own professional development. Support colleagues with their development through mentoring.
•Develop social work practice through supervision and reflection. Support colleagues at different points in their career with ongoing reflection through individual or group reflective practice activity
•Manage and be accountable for your own work
•Work collaboratively within multi-disciplinary and multi organisational teams, networks, and systems. Advising colleagues on complex areas of work through the mentoring role.
•Exercise professional judgement and decision making in complex situations.
•Support colleagues at different points in their career to develop confidence around professional judgments through the mentoring role.
•Manage complex ethical issues, dilemmas and conflicts in complex situations.
•Support social workers at different stages of their careers with managing more complex issues through the mentoring role.
•Prepare and present professional reports and records ensuring information is correct, consistent, and shared safely and appropriately. Support social workers at different stages of their career with developing their report writing and record keeping skills through the mentoring role.
•Support people to participate in decision making processes
•Advocate with and on behalf of, individuals, families, carers, groups and communities
•Work collaboratively with people in need of care and support, their carers and other professionals in complex situations, supporting colleagues with advice and guidance at different stages in their career.
•Undertake strength-based assessments and practice in a way that promotes self-determination, independence and empowerment and support colleagues with advice and guidance at different stages in their career. Support social workers at different points in their career around this area of work through the mentoring role.
•Undertake outcome focussed assessment using a ‘What Matters ‘conversation to identify what is important to that individual, eligible needs and to develop outcome focussed plans that facilitate care and support.
•Prepare, produce, implement, and evaluate plans with individuals, families, carers, groups, communities, and professional colleagues. Support social workers at different points in their career around this area of work within a mentoring role.
•Identify, assess and investigate an Adult or Child at risk in accordance with relevant legislation and the Wales Safeguarding Procedures. Support social workers at different points in their careers with developing their skills and decision making around working in safeguarding within a mentoring role.
•Be a role model and share good practice, advice and support to enable team colleagues, less experiences social workers to develop their careers. This will include mentoring, co-working on cases and supporting the services quality assurance be auditing and sampling files and practice and advising social worker colleagues on specialist areas of work within the mentoring role.
Local Duties
•Help recruit foster carers.
•Operate within the Fostering Regulations (2020)
•Assess foster carers for the care of children and young people in care and submit the assessments to the Gwynedd Fostering Panel;
•Help discover placements for children and young people who need to enter Local Authority care, either within team resources or resources provided by independent agencies;
•Review foster carers annually to ascertain if they continue to reach an expected level within the fostering competencies;
•Contribute to high quality training for foster carers.
•Be part of the team's duty rota and advise and support foster carers on the basis of being a duty worker.
•Respond to requests for information from the Public, other agencies, press etc regarding fostering.
•Act in line with the ethos of 'Foster Cymru'
•Promote a therapeutic approach to Fostering.
Additional Duties
•Responsibility for self-development.
•Ensure compliance with Health and Safety rules in the workplace in accordance with the responsibilities noted in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Council’s Health and Safety Policy.
•Operate within the Council’s policies in relation to equal opportunities and equality.
•Responsible for managing information in accordance with the Council’s information management guidelines. Ensure that personal information is treated in accordance with Data Protection legislation.
•Commitment to reducing the Council’s carbon emissions in accordance with the Carbon Management Plan, and to encourage others to act positively towards reducing the Council’s Carbon Footprint.
•Undertake any other reasonable duty which corresponds to the salary level and responsibility level of the job.
•Responsibility to report any concern or suspicion that a child or vulnerable adult is being abused.
Special circumstances
•Working unsocial hours occasionally as required.
•There will be an expectation for the post holder to be part of any arrangements that are established on a rota basis.