Senior Practitioner required to work for a Family Assesment and Support Team based in Tunbridge Wells. This is a locum position starting ASAP initially for 3 months but could be extended. You will need to be a qualified social worker with a minimum of 2 years post qualification experience and have previously worked as a Senior Practitioner. You will need to be a car driver with access to a car as you will have to travel around West Kent.

Main duties and responsibilities:
*Manage a caseload of complex and difficult cases to a high standard to ensure resources are utilised effectively and the postholder maintains their continuous professional development in social work practice.
*Provide a high quality resources of professional social work knowledge and expertise to a team of Social Workers, to include supervision, group meetings, assisted fieldwork, attendance in court, case audits and reviews etc, to assist the team in ensuring that it carries out its core tasks to a high standard.
*Provide coaching and mentoring support to Social Workers, including those undertaking post qualifying training, to support and further their professional knowledge and development to impact upon the overall quality of practice within teams.
*Attend court, where appropriate, to assist the team in ensuring that key professional input and expertise is provided to high profile and sensitive cases.

*Undertake staff supervision as directed by the Team Leader according to the needs of the team.
*Act as Practice Assessor to support student placements.
*Liaise regularly with peer colleagues throughout the Directorate to ensure social work staff deliver existing and new practices consistently and to a high standard across the Directorate.
*Contribute to the development of new initiatives through attendance on Working Groups, multi agency forums, training courses etc and acting as lead for identified pieces of Directorate initiatives, i.e. planning for permanence and research work, to develop current and new ways of working that meet service requirements.
*Maintain awareness of changes in legislation and related policies and practices and ensure all social work staff are also informed of these changes to enable consistent and timely implementation.