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About the Role

Join Harrow Children’s Services and be part of an ambitious Children’s Social Care service improving outcomes for children and families. Harrow Council is seeking Lead Child Protection Practitioners to join our Multi-Agency Child Protection Team and play a central role in strengthening statutory child protection practice across Children’s Services. This is a specialist role for a qualified and registered social worker who can provide expert leadership across Section 47 child protection enquiries, strategy discussions, child protection conferences and multi-agency safeguarding activity.

Responsibilities

Lead and coordinate Section 47 child protection enquiries across Children’s Services.
Chair strategy meetings, child protection conferences and other complex multi-agency safeguarding discussions.
Provide expert consultation, guidance and professional challenge to social workers, managers and partner agencies.
Support timely, evidence-informed and defensible decision-making where children may be suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm.
Contribute to protection and safety planning that is clear, purposeful and focused on improving outcomes for children and young people.
Promote high standards of recording, analysis, information-sharing and quality assurance across the child protection pathway.
Model relational, strengths-based, trauma-informed and culturally competent practice with children, families and professionals.

Requirements

A recognised social work qualification and current Social Work England registration.
Significant recent experience in front-line statutory child protection practice.
Detailed knowledge of child protection legislation, statutory guidance, the London Child Protection Procedures and relevant multi-agency safeguarding processes.
Experience of chairing or leading complex child protection meetings, including strategy discussions, child protection conferences or risk outside the home meetings.
Strong risk analysis, professional curiosity and the ability to hold complexity, uncertainty and multiple hypotheses.
The ability to work collaboratively with families and partners while providing clear professional challenge when needed.
Commitment to inclusive and culturally competent practice, ensuring anti-discriminatory engagement with children and families.
This post requires an enhanced DBS check, satisfactory health and work record, and the ability to travel for business purposes where required.

Skills

Expertise, confidence and professional curiosity to lead complex safeguarding decision-making.
Expert leadership across Section 47 child protection enquiries, strategy discussions, child protection conferences and multi-agency safeguarding activity.
Identifying and responding to actual or likely significant harm.
Engaging children and families during Section 47 enquiries.
Formulating risk and likelihood of significant harm.
Planning and intervening to prevent or stop harm.
Providing consultation, challenge and guidance to social workers and partner agencies.
Promoting high-quality analysis, defensible decision-making and child-centred planning.
Bringing together information from across the professional network.
Supporting robust assessment of risk inside and outside the home.
Ensuring safeguarding responses are relational, trauma-informed, anti-racist, inclusive and proportionate.
Strong understanding of intra-familial and extra-familial harm, including adolescent exploitation and risk outside the home.
Professional judgement, challenge and partnership working.

Location

Harrow (Borough)

Work Type

Hybrid working model with office base and work from home
Majority of time within the borough working closely with children, families, social workers, managers and multi-agency safeguarding partners

Experience Level

Experienced practitioner
Significant operational experience in statutory child protection

Education Level

Recognised social work qualification

About the Company

The London Borough of Harrow is embarking on an exciting period of change as we deliver a series of ambitious Children’s Reforms Programmes – including Families First, Best Start Family Hubs, Best Start in Life and SEND Reforms.
We strive to help every child thrive and through the reforms we are reshaping our future support for children, young people and families across the borough.
As part of the Families First Programme, we are building a practice system where relationships are key, where we work alongside children and families encouraging family led decision making and offering multi-disciplinary help when its needed.
We are building on our strengths to further improve our approach to child protection, remodelling our system to create a dedicated Multi-Agency Child Protection Service (MACPS), to have the lead role in keeping children and adolescents safe.