Interviews scheduled to be held on Monday 7th & Tuesday 8th October 2019.

Children and Families service is recognised as a service in which social work can develop and prosper, with a culture of collaboration, integrity and compassion; promoting development and wellbeing of children, young people and their families; protecting them from neglect and abuse. Working together with partners delivering a range of early help, family support and effective social work interventions which build resilience, remove barriers and enable children and young people to look forward to a brighter future.

The Placement Monitoring Officer works as part of a team to ensure the external provision, including NRPF Accommodation, sourced for children and young people who are "looked after", meets the regulatory and quality standards of both Ofsted and Essex County Council.

Accountabilities

* Undertake Quality Assurance and Health & Safety visits to external providers, delivering placements, support and NRPF Accommodation for children and young people to ensure expected and contracted standards are met.
* Identify and escalate quality and contract issues to managers within the Placement Service and Procurement teams to facilitate prompt resolution.
* Responsible for ensuring all relevant documentation i.e. reports on quality assurance visits, Health & Safety, risk assessments, is received from the provider, to enable sharing with other professionals e.g. contract managers.
* Deliver agreed processes, notifications and recordings on visits made to provide accurate records and enable trends and concerns to be identified.
* Build strong working relationships across the Council and with providers and other organisations and agencies to ensure children and young people are provided with high quality placements and support.
* Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

* Educated to RQF level 3 (GCSE) or equivalent by experience.
* Evidence of development within role and knowledge in the relevant professional area.
* Experience of working in a supportive relationship with children, young people and families.
* Experience of working with and challenging providers of care and support
* Experience of undertaking quality assurance visits
* Experience of collaborating with other professionals and agencies for the benefit of children/young people.
* Competence in the use of all forms of IT and the ability to communicate clearly, both written and verbal.
(Qualification certificates should be brought to interview)

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to

Essex County Council is proud to offer an excellent benefits package to all its employees. More information can be found on the Working for Essex website.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

We seek the best talent from the widest pool of people as diversity is key to our success.