Safeguarding Adolescents From Exploitation and Risk (SAFER) Co Ordinator

Job Introduction

About Us

Oxfordshire County Council has three exciting opportunities for highly motivated social workers and contextual safeguarding specialist to join our newly created SAFER Team. The SAFER Team is a service working within County Council’s Children’s Social Care.  

This opportunity comes at a pivotal time when we are amalgamating our youth justice service, targeted youth support offer and new SAFER – Safeguarding Adolescences from Exploitation and Risk into an integrated adolescence and prevention service. 

About the Role

As a practitioner within the SAFER Team you will provide expert consultations and direct interventions to young people and their families who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing Child Criminal Exploitation and/or Child Sexual Exploitation.

You will be closely linked to the MACE (Multi Agency child Exploitation) panels and provide an intensive support function to young people and their families across Oxfordshire who are subject to panel oversight. You will work closely with allocated Social Workers, The Youth Justice Team and other relevant support services.

In addition to work with individual children, you will hold a caseload of “contextual” cases, which will involve the assessment and planning around neighbourhoods, peer groups, and schools that are posing a risk of harm to children in Oxfordshire. This is an emerging area of contextual safeguarding practice which you would be actively involved in shaping.

You will provide intensive response to young people and their families via a range of evidence-based interventions, support with safety planning and Multi Agency Risk Assessment Planning (MARAMP) to reduce the risk related to criminal exploitation and/or sexual exploitation and to assist the Lead Professional to manage and reduce those safeguarding risks.

You will support the quality assurance of work connected to children going missing, radicalisation and serious youth violence.

You will provide close working alignment to statutory service provision e.g. Child Protection Plans, Risk Outside The Home (ROTH) plans, Child in Need Plans, Criminal Justice Orders and MARAMP risk management plans.

You will provide regular updates to the statutory Lead Professional and the MACE panel as well as participating in group supervision.

You will provide advice and guidance relating to interventions and risk management of children who are being sexually and criminally exploited to other professionals where appropriate rather than completing intensive direct work.

You will deliver specialist support to families who have been assessed as having multiple needs, who without support are at risk of needing increased social care intervention or at risk of entering the care system.

You will represent the adolescence and prevention service as required in internal and external forums as appropriate

You will ensure to adhere to all relevant safeguarding practices and recording procedures on our children’s services databases. 

Please note: our job descriptions are currently being updated and so please be aware that the scope of the role is as described in the advert and may be amended further. 

About you

In order to carry out and develop this role, you will have excellent communication skills, creativity, managing multi-agency responses and experience of building multi-agency links, including voluntary and charity sector organisations. You will understand contextual safeguarding research and application and have a passion for and experience in working with adolescents and young adults and best practice with this client group and their families.

• Social Work Qualification and registration with Social Work England 
• Experience of preventing child exploitation across areas 
• Partnership work experience, including across statutory partners, police, health and VCSE partners 
• Experience of supporting contextual safeguarding responses, being part of panels and MACE (multi agency child exploitation) Strategic Groups 
• Experience of supporting quality assurance  

• Able to work as part of a team and with a wide range of professionals, confident working in a political environment.  
• Confident in using IT systems and databases.  
• Committed to professional development by engaging with reflective processes and ongoing learning.  
• Able to travel to and access a variety of locations across the County easily. 

This is a county wide role and work may take place anywhere in the county of Oxfordshire. You will need to be able to easily access urban and remote locations.  

The needs of the children, young people & families are varied, and you will need to remain flexible in your work with service users and adapt accordingly. You will need to be able to work flexibly including evenings and weekends as required to meet service need.

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps) and any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/ criteria in the advert/ person spec to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities.   

To find out more, please contact Jessie Dobson, Partnership Youth Development Manager, Jessie.Dobson3@Oxfordshire.gov.uk or mobile 07776 997 935. 

Rewards and benefits

• Annual leave starting at 28 days per year (plus bank holidays). 
• A comprehensive Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). 
• Employee Assistance Programme including access to health and wellbeing support 24 x7. 
• Range of family friendly policies. 
• Cycle to work scheme, electric car scheme, range of staff discounts including travel, holidays, insurance, food, health & leisure activities. 
• Excellent learning and development opportunities. 

Our commitment to:
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

At Oxfordshire County Council we are proud of our diverse workforce. Everyone is accepted for who they are, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marital status, race, faith or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, or on maternity or family leave. We have a number of staff network groups which provide peer support, education and safe spaces for all.

Our commitment to:
Guaranteed Interview Schemes

As a Disability Confident employer, we guarantee an interview for disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the job. We also guarantee interviews to care leavers who have completed further education and who meet the essential criteria for the job. For those leaving care without any further education, we guarantee an interview for our apprenticeships. We are also committed to helping and supporting those transitioning from HM Armed Forces to civilian life and guarantee an interview for those demonstrating the essential criteria for the role, within three years of leaving the service.

Our commitment to:
Safeguarding

Oxfordshire County Council are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults. We expect all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment. We will ensure that all our recruitment and selection practices reflect these commitments.

Our commitment to:
Flexible Working

We are open to discussions about flexible working, which can include flexi-time, full time and part time working, job sharing, nine-day fortnights and annualised hours, depending on the requirements of the role and the service.

Follow us on Social Media

Stay up-to-date with the latest news and featured jobs from Oxfordshire County Council by following us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

If you encounter any technical issues with the application system, please contact us at: careers@oxfordshire.gov.uk