Band 7 Forensic Social Work Team Manager, Bristol

Job overview

The Forensic Social Work team provides the Social Work provision to AWP’s Secure Medium and Low Secure Inpatient wards based at Blackberry Hill Hospital, Bristol.

It is one of the eight provider organisations within the South West Provider Collaborative who are commissioned to deliver Adult Secure Services. Although the team provide a service primarily to the Inpatient wards, they have close working relationships with the Secure Community Forensic Teams who are also based on the same site.

The post-holder should have significant experience within the Forensic Mental Health setting, demonstrating appropriate knowledge and experience of complex safeguarding and MAPPA cases as will be expected to hold a small but complex caseload.

This role will provide both clinical leadership and direct operational support to the Forensic Social Work team, under the direct line management of the Head of the Community Forensic Services Manager.

They will be pivotal in leading a high quality service, ensuring professional social work standards are maintained across Secure whilst also maintaining effective close working relationships with key stakeholders, such as MAPPA, Safeguarding, Service User and Carer involvement

We can offer opportunities to develop your Leadership and Management skills through training, profession-specific support and development supervision/coaching.

Main duties of the job

Under the management of the Community Forensic Service Manager the post holder will champion best practice in social care and safeguarding within Secure Services.

The Post Holder will carry an appropriately sized caseload of complex cases.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

People leadership and management

Provide inclusive, compassionate and effective leadership for your team by setting clear vision and direction.

Develop a culture and environment in which members of staff are encouraged and supported to deliver high- quality services and are supported to innovate and improve services where appropriate.

Encourage your team to feel able to raise concerns openly and safely.

Promote equality of opportunity in service delivery and employment, ensuring that no person receives less favourable treatment than another on the grounds of gender, marital status, race, religion, creed, colour nationality ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation or disability.

Support prompt recruitment by identifying vacancies to the AWP Recruitment Team as soon as they arise, and participate in the selection and effective induction and onboarding of new joiners to the team.

Ensure that all team members have a very positive introduction to the team and a well-supported first year.

Take responsibility for encouraging people to stay with AWP, ensuring that you are aware whenever a member of your team is considering leaving, seeking to understand their reasons and encouraging them to stay.

Ensure that key messages are cascaded in your team and that your team are encouraged to put forward suggestions.

Show appreciation to your team when they do good work and support them when they are struggling.

Consider the individual needs of team members for a healthy work-life balance and think about how their needs can be supported by providing flexible ways of working.

Support all team members to keep their mandatory and statutory training up-to-date and identify the learning and development needs of all team members of the team ensuring that everyone has an up-to-date personal development plan (PDP).

Ensure that every team member as at least an hour of supervision (one-to-one meeting) each month, this may include both managerial and clinical supervision.

Ensure all team members receive a constructive assessment of their performance each year and set SMART objectives for the coming year.

Seek support from the HR Team to tackle any worries regarding matters of discipline, including both conduct and capability concerns, supporting a ‘just and restorative culture’. Take prompt action regarding serious concerns and ensure clear plans are in place for problems which are less serious in nature but prove difficult to resolve.

Act as a positive role model at all times, encouraging people to feel equal members of the team whilst working within clear frameworks and policies.

Promote effective use of bank and agency nursing staff, providing a safe and effective service, complying with regulatory standards.

Performance and information management

Ensure that you and your team understand all of the agreed key performance indicators for your service, particularly relating to outcomes and essential standards to be met.

Ensure that you and your team understand data quality standards and that all the necessary records for your service are maintained and reported.

Ensure that you and your team understand all of the clinical and business action plans relevant to your services.

Ensure that you and your team understand all of the monitoring, auditing and reporting systems relevant to your services.

Service development and planning

Actively seek opportunities for improvement for the services which you and your team provide by identifying research evidence and best practice elsewhere, interpreting/translating and facilitating adaptation for AWP.

Analyse and interpret data to inform the strategic direction of the services which you and your team provide

Ensure multidisciplinary involvement and the use of quality improvement (QI) techniques in service improvement, by negotiating shared solutions, facilitating the resolution of complex or contentious issues and managing any conflict into constructive outcomes.

Ensure effective risk identification, analysis, mitigation and management within your services, encouraging all members of your team to be aware of and to manage risks.

Governance and policy

Ensure that you understand all of the key governance requirements, policies and standards for your services and that these are communicated to your team; make sure your team understand the importance of good governance.

Support the development of policies relevant to your services, including your team in this work.

Financial and resource management

Monitor and exercise appropriate control over the budget(s) for your team, ensuring that both you and your team understand the resources available to support provision of a high quality and cost-effective service.

Challenge and manage poor financial management and poor use of any resources.

Ensure optimum use of people and other resources; particularly though emphasizing use of substantive staffing and effective use of bank and agency staff.

Ensure that whenever you authorise expenditure you are thoughtful and careful about whether there could be a more cost-effective solution.

Ensure that your use of resources is in accordance with AWP Standing Orders and Standing Financial Instructions.

Stakeholder involvement

Ensure that you are aware of the many stakeholders to your services (your key stakeholders will include all members of your multi-disciplinary team, other teams, service users, families, carers, local communities, other statutory agencies, other healthcare providers etc)

Develop and maintain positive relationships with your key stakeholders, this may include proactive communications to ensure full involvement and engagement in the delivery of services and aims and objectives.

Person specification

Education and Qualification

• Qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England with at least 5 years of experience

• Leading and Managing experience

Experience and Knowledge

• Substantial post-registration experience gained working in front-line services with the most complex clinical cases
• An in depth understanding of Forensic Social Work and Forensic services
• To have awareness of current national forensic social work developments
• Substantial experience of delivering mental health social care – with a well-developed understanding of relevant Local Authority processes.
• Demonstrates a highly developed understanding of the principles of recovery and the role of secondary mental health services in the delivery of care and able to show how this has been delivered in practice
• Experience of delivering defined outcomes against measurable targets
• Significant experience of complex assessment, risk management and care planning in complex need
• Experience of undertaking complex carers’ and family assessments
• Able to articulate an advanced and detailed understanding of the relevant legal frameworks/legislation including CPA process, Mental Health Act , Mental Capacity Act, and Safeguarding, in order to lead and manage others
• Experience of providing professional supervision to colleagues at independent practitioner level, ensuring complex interventions are delivered safely

• Experience of managing others
• Research skills
• Knowledge of joint planning and commissioning structures
• Knowledge of health and social care purchasing and commissioning structures

Skills and Abilities

• Evidence of teaching / training skills & Experience of mentoring/assessing students and learners
• Significant experience of assessing risk and developing risk management strategies
• Excellent understanding of contemporary practice issues such as vulnerable adults, children of parents with mental disorder and personality disorder 'not a diagnosis of exclusion'
• Evidence of recent professional development
• Networking, team working and chairing skills.
• Ability to work in self-directed manner Time management skills
• Ability to prioritise, particularly when working under pressure
• Understanding of roles of multi-disciplinary team members in mental health care

This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

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Please apply to join us, we would love to hear from you. Any personal details you supply to us are kept safe in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Adverts normally close for application a few minutes before midnight on the closing date and we will let you know if we are offering you an interview by email via our recruitment system ‘TRAC’. We contact all applicants within 4 weeks after the closing date, so please check your emails regularly once you have submitted your application; you are welcome to contact us, via the TRAC system, if you have any queries about your application.

Please note the use of AI is monitored and if you have used it in your application you are required to declare this.