Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (SCPHN) who is passionate about safeguarding babies, children and young people, to work in close partnership with Lewisham Council Children’s Social Care on the ‘Families First for Children’ (FFC) pathfinder programme.

Lewisham is one of a handful of areas across the country that have been selected by the Department for Education to test a package of innovative reforms to the way that safeguarding services are delivered to children, young people and families, before these are implemented on a national scale. The focus of the FFC programme is on family-led and multi-agency ways of working that ensure that families ‘only tell their story once’. The postholder will be at the forefront of developing and testing an exciting transformation in Children’s Social Care, in partnership with local authority, education, and police partners.

The post holder will work within the new Multiagency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs) within Children’s Social Care, providing expert clinical health advice to support the process of safeguarding babies, children and young people. The postholder will work alongside Social Work, Police and Education colleagues, to ensure safe and effective decision making at every point in the child’s safeguarding journey.

Main duties of the job

· Provide expert clinical health advice and case consultation to Lead Child Protection Practitioners (Social Workers) within the MACPT. This may include facilitating access to specialist advice where needed if this can’t be provided directly within their clinical skillset.

· Interpret and analyse health information from a range of sources to provide a clinical view.

· Provide further exploration of health needs through professional curiosity, including to challenge the health response as needed

· Have conversations with senior health practitioners across the wide health network, to support decisions being made in the best interests of the child

· Support the MACPT staff to navigate and understand the local network of health services, including understanding service offers, thresholds, and signposting to local services.

· Attend and contribute to fortnightly group supervision around cases within the MACPTs and attending team meetings, to give a health perspective and expertise

· To offer joint visits with the multiagency team where deemed necessary, in order to provide more in-depth assessment of health need

· Have access to LCS alongside the relevant NHS systems, to support their ability to understand a case from a holistic point of view, improve efficiency, and directly add health case notes as needed

Working for our organisation

Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:

1. Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
2. Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
3. Improving the experience of staff with disability
4. Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
5. Making equalities mainstream