Senior Social Worker (AMHP) WCC620960

Job Details:

Salary range: £54,684 - £57,726 per annum (including an allowance of up to 5% of the annual salary)
Work location: 190 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 1DX
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: Permanent
Vetting requirements: Enhanced DBS Check
Closing date: 11 May 2025 

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF HAYLEA’S UNBEATABLE SPIRIT 

Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where people use their optimism and talent to achieve more than anyone thought possible. 

Nobody personifies this more than Haylea Navarro. Born with cerebral palsy and paralysed down one side since birth, Haylea has been gleefully proving people wrong ever since. Now a project officer, she brings faster broadband connectivity to Westminster businesses, boosting the economy for all. Throw in her gong at the 2020 London Apprenticeship Awards, and it’s clear for all to see just what can happen when you never give in. 

Please view the extraordinary story of Haylea’s Unbeatable Spirit here.

The Role:

As a Senior Social Worker with our Joint Homelessness team you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. Helping to provide management and leadership to the team’s social workers, you’ll play a key role in ensuring we offer the highest standards of social care to our service users. You’ll also work to deliver mental health assessments for Westminster’s street homeless, and operate in partnership with other clinical services within the local authority and provider agencies to ensure that homeless service users receive the support they need.

Committed to ensuring all our staff practise in a safe, appropriate and professional way, you’ll develop and maintain close relationships with other professionals and stakeholders such as outreach services, accommodation providers and GPs. Organising and investigating any safeguarding concerns that arise, we’ll also expect you to attend regular management and senior team meetings, ensure staff keep accurate electronic notes, and contribute to the implementation of the clinical governance agenda.

Other key tasks will include participation in street outreach sessions, promoting and supporting recovery and self-care, and deploying resources in an effective manner to meet service users’ needs. You should also be prepared to maintain and develop your practice expertise to ensure ongoing professional registration with Social Work England, be responsible for your own continuous personal development, and attend professional practice forums.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

With well developed experience of working with homeless people as a Social Worker and Approved Mental Health Professional, you’ll have the ability to manage staff in a high pressure working environment, and possess a successful track record of making improvements in service delivery and operational effectiveness. A confident and motivating leader with excellent risk assessment, safeguarding and decision-making skills, you’ll also have good knowledge of all the relevant legislation and codes of practice.

It's essential that you possess a good command of written and spoken English, and with this in mind you’ll be a clear and effective communicator with significant skills in developing partnerships with key stakeholders. We’ll also expect you to be able to engage with challenging and acutely distressed patients in potentially hostile or antagonistic situations, be ready to employ de-escalation techniques effectively, and use your clinical knowledge to make decisions based on an analysis of complex presenting problems and judgement about the available options. 

A collaborative and creative team worker, it’s vital that you have a good understanding of performance management systems and the importance of achieving targets. Committed to treating service users with respect and dignity at all times, and ready to adopt a culturally sensitive approach which considers the needs of the whole person, you should also be flexible in your practice and prepared to occasionally extend your working day if required. When it comes to qualifications, you should have an appropriate social work qualification, registration with Social Work England, and current or recent warranting as an AMHP.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority (GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' (formally known as B.A.M.E , Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. 

Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties

As a forward thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application , we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.

We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants.