Service Teams
This section is your quick guide to all the specialist teams working with children and families. We hope by using testimonials of our staff, you will be able to get a helpful and informative insight into Southwark's social work environment as well as assisting you in deciding which specialist area is of most interest to you.
Specialist Children’s Services are organised across five major service areas - so do feel free to roam and identify how we deliver and work together. All our staff were asked the same set of questions, so you will be able to hear about how we invest in staff as well as service delivery.
Assessment, Family Support & Safeguarding
The Assessment, Family Support and Safeguarding Service provides social work assistance to the children and families of Southwark. The focus of this service is to ensure that children who are at risk of abuse or may be children in need are provided with timely and effective assessments and interventions.
We aim to support families and offer a range of services to assess, support and aim to improve the lives of children who we work with. We work with a wide range of partners and colleagues in other agencies in the borough to achieve positive interventions for children and their families.
The Referral and Assessment Team offers a point of contact for professionals, parents, children and other members of the community who may have concerns about children.
The Family Support Service offers a service to children who have been identified as requiring a child protection plan.
Additional specialised services include the Out of Hours Team, Family Court Assessment Service, Alternative to Care Team, Private Fostering Special Guardianship and Residence Order Service, and the Parenting Service.
The Referral & Assessment Team
The Referral and Assessment Team offers a point of contact for professionals, parents, children and other members of the community who may have concerns about children or who are seeking advice. In 2007-8 we received nearly 10,000 contacts from professionals and family members in relation to the children of Southwark.
Initial assessments are sometimes followed by more detailed assessments. In 2007-8 Social Care undertook over 2,000 assessments of need and risk. This led to initial child protection case conferences on approximately 330 children within the system, including unborn children. Many children who are the subjects of core assessments will go on to have allocated social workers and longer-term services from the Family Resource or Family Support teams.
Family Support Service
The Family Support Service’s primary focus is to offer a service to children who have been identified as requiring a child protection plan. The service also works with children who have been identified as children in need and who are thought to be at some risk or who have very complex needs.
During the course of 2007/8, the number of children subject to child protection plans was 270-230 with a further 400 children in need. The team works closely with families and professionals to address the issues of concern, based on a planning process that includes regular reviews.
Specialist Child Health & Disabilities
A new building has created a unique opportunity to deliver integrated working for children with complex needs and disabilities – and superb opportunities for our staff – at Sunshine House, the new children and young people’s centre in Peckham. The specialist child health team is co-located here with other disability-focused services, including education.
Specialist child health is a multi professional team, which includes audiology, child health administration, community paediatricians, continuing care nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, and special needs nurses. We also work alongside clinical psychologists from the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.
Our aim is to provide child-centred services for families to promote the health and well being of children aged 0-19 years who are vulnerable, or who have developmental difficulties, disabilities or chronic health needs. The child and family are treated holistically, and their needs are at the centre of our service delivery.
Being in one building has enabled strong links to develop between different professional groups and agencies. You’ll work in an environment that inspires communication, shared learning and mutual respect. Practitioners arrange for joint visits and assessments, and are encouraged to collaborate with others to ensure robust decision-making and delivery of effective support and interventions.
The Children with Disabilities and Complex Needs Team provides services to disabled children and young people from 0-18 who meet the criteria for disability registration, which is severe, profound and permanent.
The Child & Adolescent Mental Health Team aims to provide a holistic approach to children and young people’s mental health difficulties.
Children with Disabilities and Complex Needs
This is a supportive multi-disciplinary environment providing a comprehensive social work service to young people with disabilities and complex needs aged 0-18. There are also services for young people aged 0-18 infected or affected by HIV/ AIDS.
Due to the complex nature of our work, which is often multi-disciplinary and diverse, we adopt the team-around-the-child model. This encourages working in partnership with young people, parents, carers and families. The team includes a communication specialist who facilitates effective communication using both verbal and non-verbal strategies.
We support disabled young people within their family networks by providing respite packages and short breaks. We also undertake safeguarding assessments, and offer the full range of social work interventions for children looked after and children in need.
Child & Adolescent Mental Health
The social work service aims to provide a holistic approach to children and young people’s mental health difficulties. All members of the team work with a multi-disciplinary child and adolescent mental health team within the South London & Maudsley Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.
We draw upon knowledge of psycho-social approaches to help children and their families cope with the distress and difficulties they face, and are an important bridge to local community resources, services and support. We advise on current procedural and legislative frameworks, promote culturally sensitive responses and interventions and, increasingly, ensure that young people’s views and wishes are taken seriously in care planning and management.
Our social work staff are deployed in a variety of national and specialist child mental health services as well as within Southwark’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Social workers are attached to both in patient and outpatient teams and provide a social work perspective in both the generic and specialist child mental health services. Team members are also deployed within the local family support service and the children’s mental health looked after service, Carelink.
Youth Offending Service
Southwark Youth Offending Service (YOS) is one of the largest in London. This reflects both local challenges and the commitment of partner agencies to prevent and reduce offending and anti-social behaviour committed by young people. We also aim to reduce the fear of crime within the local community and promote the public confidence in the criminal justice system.
The YOS provides a range of services either directly or in partnership with other agencies. These range from confronting young offenders with the consequences of their behaviour to promoting social inclusion and ensuring access to education, training and employment. We are organised into operational units, each including staff from Southwark Children’s Services, Youth and Connexions Service, Southwark Primary Care Trust, Metropolitan Police Service and the National Probation Service. A multi-agency steering group provides strategic management for the YOS and monitors the performance of the service in relation to its key objectives.
Southwark is an inner-city borough with a number of high-risk young offenders, so we aim to provide high-quality interventions and innovative solutions to the problems young people face.
Court Services provides a duty service to the Youth Court.
The Early Intervention Team delivers youth inclusion and support services.
The Gangs Disruption Project aims to challenge young people’s attitudes.
Court Services
The Court Services team provides a duty service to the Youth Court. You’ll undertake Appropriate Adult duties on a roster, supervising young people while at court and giving oral evidence as appropriate. You’ll also be responsible for the preparation of Pre-Sentence Reports and the supervision of a range of Court-ordered interventions.
Early Intervention Team
The Early Intervention Team (EIT) delivers youth inclusion and support services as part of a multi-agency network. You’ll work with children and young people aged between 8 and 16 who have started to exhibit anti-social and disruptive behaviour and may be at significant risk of offending.
Support for parents/carers and young people is provided through mediation and mentoring to help strengthen family relationships. Young people are also supported through group work programmes, one-to-one sessions and constructive leisure activities. Help is offered to manage transition to secondary school, along with home-school liaison.
Gangs Disruption Project
This project aims to challenge young people’s attitudes, demystifying the appeal of gangs, and raising consciousness about the effects of negative behaviour. You’ll work with individuals who are identified either as either known gang members or on the periphery of involvement.
Interventions are geared towards exploring the influences on young people, dissecting values and beliefs and assisting young people to make more informed life choices. Work centres on a 14-week programme that confronts young people on issues around violence, masculinity, identity and peer pressure.
Children Looked After Service
Looked-after children are amongst the most vulnerable in Southwark’s community. The Children Looked After (CLA) service works with partners across the Council, PCT, SLAM, Metropolitan Police, Youth Offending and the voluntary sector to deliver the best possible outcomes for children. We operate within the context of Every Child Matters and the broader Children’s Service vision.
The Children Looked-After Service has three main service areas as follows:
• Adoption & Fostering Services
• Looked-After Services: 0 – 12
• Looked-After Services: 13 – 21 Adolescent and Aftercare Service
Adoption & Fostering Services recruits and supports carers, and safeguards children in their care.
Services for Looked-After Children (0 – 12) provides care planning for younger looked-after children including health, education, secondary transition and permanency plans.
Adolescent & Aftercare Service provides for young people aged 13-21. This includes planning for health, education, pathways and transitions.
The Contact Service supervises contact between children and their parents when such arrangements have been agreed in court proceedings.
0-12 Service
We provide care planning for looked-after children age 0-12 including health, education, secondary transition and permanency plans. Children are helped to build resilience and a sense of family or cultural heritage and promote contact with their birth parents and extended family.
We also deliver a case management service to Family Proceedings Courts to determine appropriate outcomes for looked-after children.
Looked-After Services: 0 – 12, comprises:
• Provision of care planning for looked-after children age 0 – 12 including health, education, secondary transition and permanency plans
• Delivery of long-term plans (permanency) to promote adoption, Special Guardianship or permanent return home wherever possible
• Provision of effective life story interventions for looked-after children to build resilience and sense of family/cultural heritage
• Promotion of meaningful contact with birth parents and extended family
• Delivery of a contact service where court or risk assessments indicate that contact between the looked-after child and the extended family should be supervised
• Delivery of effective case management service to Family Proceedings Courts to determine appropriate outcomes for looked-after children
• Taking lead responsibility for managing an integrated Education Team to promote outcomes for looked-after children
• Actively supporting “Speakerbox” and effective participation activities
Adolescent & Aftercare Service
We provide care for young people aged 13 and over. This includes contact and support for young people who have left care, up to the age of 21. From helping pupils to achieve their GCSEs to assisting those who wish to attend university, education and training is key focus. We also work in partnership with other specialists to reduce teenage pregnancy, youth offending and substance misuse.
In partnership with Southwark Housing and Commissioning services, we deliver appropriate living accommodation post-18.
Looked-After Services: 13 – 21 Adolescent and Aftercare Service, comprises:
• Provision of care planning to include health, education, pathway and transition plans
• Maintaining meaningful contact and support for young people who have left care up to the age of 21
• Delivery of support to young people who wish to attend university
• Delivery of a range of programmes to ensure that young people in care over 16 are engaged in education, employment or further training
• Working in partnership with Health to deliver effective health interventions and to reduce teenage pregnancy
• Delivery of specialist partnerships to address issues regarding youth offending, substance misuse and sexual health
• Track and support pupils in years 10 and 11 to achieve GCSE results
• Delivery of a range of interventions post-16 to promote semi-independence including group work, skill training and appropriate placement
• Actively supporting “Speakerbox” and effective participation activities
• Working in partnership with Southwark Housing and Commissioning services, delivering appropriate living accommodation post-18.
• Focusing on services from Connexions, Further Education and Apprenticeship Schemes to ensure looked-after children post-16 are in employment, education or training
Adoption & Fostering Service
We recruit, train and approve foster carers and adopters and deliver ongoing support to them. Along with managing the allowance system, this can include providing specialist advice on drugs, teenage pregnancy and education or managing challenging behaviour.
We also provide counselling to adult adopted children and pathways to reunions.
Adoption & Fostering Services comprise:
• Recruitment, training and approval of foster carers and adopters
• Delivery of a planned, short-term break scheme for children with profound disabilities who usually live with their family in the community
• Delivery of ongoing support to include specialist advice (drugs, teenage pregnancy, education, health) and managing challenging behaviour (CareLink) for foster carers and adopters
• Delivery of foster care allowances and adopters allowances (payments)
• Maintaining appropriate safeguarding and reviewing systems for all approved carers
• Co-location of joint-funded project in partnership with SLAM (CareLink) to provide individual support to foster carers and children experiencing behavioural/emotional difficulties
• Provision of a 24 hour support and back-up carers system to improve placement resilience
• Delivery of a comprehensive post-approval training scheme for Southwark foster carers
• Assessing, supporting and approving Southwark Kinship carers
• Delivery of a strategy to enhance foster carer provision through leisure, recreation, libraries, London Grid for Learning and after-school learning opportunities
• Actively supporting “Speakerbox” and effective participation activities
• Provision of birth records counselling to adult adopted children and pathways to reunions
• Provision of Children in Need Assessments for children once adopted
• Provision of an inter-country adoption service
Contact Service
The Contact Service supervises contact between children and their parents when such arrangements have been agreed in court proceedings.
Enabling family relationships to be maintained makes an invaluable contribution to children’s welfare. The views and assessments of Contact Supervisors about progress and relationships are highly valued by social workers and courts.
Quality Assurance Service
This small, specialist team ensures high standards of practice with children who are subject to protection or looked after. We support children in Southwark by looking after everything from children’s rights to access to records and are looking for other professionals with advanced skills to join us.
Though we work with other services in the Division, we operate at arm’s length. However, we have close working relationships with partners in health, schools, early years, community safety, and other parts of Children’s Services. We also provide management and support to the Local Safeguarding Children Board, which is responsible for the overall local strategy and procedure to safeguard the 62,000 children in Southwark.
Child Protection Co-ordinators chair child protection conferences and complex strategy meetings.
Independent Reviewing Officers chair looked-after children reviews, ensuring that young people are able to participate.
Child Protection Nurses give leadership within health settings for child protection, provide advice and training from a health perspective and analyse circumstances around child deaths for the child death overview panel.
Co-ordinators and Nurses also give specialist advice and consultancy and are involved in delivering multi-disciplinary training to professionals across a wide range of agencies.
The Children’s Rights and Participation Co-ordinator works to ensure that looked-after children can express their views social workers and local councillors. The co-ordinator also works with Speakerbox, a self-managed group for looked-after young people.
Access and Data Protection Staff include a Data Protection Officer who assists adults who were previously looked after to access their records and a Caldicott Guardian to give specialist advice on the Data Protection Act.
Specialist Administrators support child protection conferences and child protection checks, and help to monitor our performance against key performance indicators.
Independent Reviewing Officer
Southwark Children’s Specialist Services has a team of up to eight IROs who chair review meetings. As an IRO you will look at care plans and day-to-day living arrangements, and prioritise permanent long-term care arrangements, health, education, leisure, identity and contact arrangements.
For older children, IROs must ensure that there are effective plans for transition to adulthood and aftercare, including employment or further education and independent living. To ensure reviews are independent, the team is managed within the Quality Assurance Service, separately to social work services for children.
The role
You will carry a caseload of children or young people and will monitor them between the statutory review meetings. You’ll ensure that young people are aware of their rights and know how to make representations, complain or seek advocacy. It’s vital to ensure young people are involved in the meetings and their views are taken into account. You must also be skilled in communicating with parents, carers and other professionals to ensure that care plans for children are followed through. Within the team, you might be asked to take lead responsibility for a defined area (eg youth offending, disabled children).
Who can apply?
IROs are qualified social workers with substantial knowledge, experience and skills in direct work and case management for children in care. It’s likely you will have worked at supervisory or management level. You must be able to provide specialist consultation, advice or training and be skilled in chairing sensitive meetings.
Child Protection Co-ordinator
As the specialist, independent adviser and decision-maker for child protection processes, the Child Protection Co-ordinator (CPC) chairs multi-agency meetings and provides specialist training to staff in all agencies. There is a team of up to six CPCs.
In child protection conferences, it’s you who’ll decide whether the child is at risk of significant harm and needs a protection plan. In complex strategy meetings you’ll ensure there’s a plan for investigating allegations against professionals in a position of trust or where there are complex organisational concerns. To ensure independent decision-making and review, CPCs are managed within the Quality Assurance Service, separately from social work services for children.
The role
As you will be advising and training others, as well as getting involved in policy development and the support of high quality practice, you must have a keen awareness of current research and guidance in child protection. You’ll be expected to lead multi-disciplinary networks and monitor effective outcomes, including through audit. A key part of the role is communicating with young people and parents to involve them in meetings and hear their views. Within the team, you might be asked to take lead responsibility for a defined area (eg domestic violence, substance misuse)
Who can apply?
CPCs are qualified social workers with substantial experience and skill in direct work and case management for children in care. You’re likely to have experience at supervisory or management level and particular expertise in child protection, including legal processes. You must be able to provide specialist consultation, advice or training and have defined skills in chairing sensitive meetings.