Social Care Services for Children
Improve the lives of children and young people in Hounslow.
Protecting vulnerable children and struggling families living in Hounslow is a vital part of the work we do here at the London Borough of Hounslow. Child protective services cover a wide variety of situations and needs, but whatever your role you play within our team, you’ll go home knowing that you’ve made an impact on the lives of children who need your support.
What kind of roles are available?
There are many different children and families we work with in Hounslow. Some have learning disabilities, others are in the foster care system, have physical disabilities, or need safeguarding in relation to youth offending and the criminal justice system.
We’re looking for qualified social workers with at least 1-2 years’ experience to help support these people.
What areas of Child Social Care could I get involved in?
Social Workers can be placed across many of our local child social care services. These include:
Family First Intensive Support
The Family First Intense Support service (formerly known as Early Help service) consists of Family Support, Targeted Youth Services, the Family Adolescent Assertive Support Team, Family Group Conference Co-ordinators, Troubled Family Employment Advisors, and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors. They work holistically with the whole family to offer relevant support to families, children, and young people, ensuring early intervention means they get the help and support they need at the right time.
MASH
Hounslow MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) is just one part of our front-door service. The team gather quality information from various professionals and services in order to form a risk assessment for a child, young person, or family.
Intake teams
These teams are the first point of access and front door for referrals to Children’s Services. They undertake Child and Family Assessments under section 17 of the Children’s Act (1989) as well as undertaking section 47 Child Protection Investigations. The Intake Teams set up the Initial Child Protection Case Conference in cases where there are child protection issues. They usually work with children and families for a period of about three months but where there is need for ongoing social work involvement these cases might take longer as the intake team refer them to longer-term support services.
Safeguarding and Support Teams
There are three Safeguarding and Support Teams that are responsible for working with children who are part of or have recently left Child Protection plans. These teams hold Child in Need cases transferred from the Intake Teams. They convene Legal Planning meetings on cases where the Child Protection plan is failing to address concerns and will hold cases under the Public Law Outline (PLO) framework. The team also issue care proceedings when the PLO fails to address the needs of the child and make initial applications to the Court. They handle care proceedings cases through to conclusion and then transfer cases to the Looked After Children teams.
Adolescent Team
This team consists of an Advanced Practitioner and several social workers who practise safeguarding methods and trauma-informed practice. They work alongside the Youth Offending Service, CAMHS, Targeted Youth Service, Family Adolescent Assertive Support Team, The Peace Project, in addition to the police, education, and health services.
Through Care Team
The Through Care Team take over from the Intake of Safeguarding and Support teams when there is an agreed plan for a child to remain in long term foster care. These children are under the age of 14 and the team will take care of their case until the child reaches 18 years old. Their focus is ensure that children in the care of the Local Authority are achieving their potential and are being supported by parents, carers, and all key professionals. They help prepare care plans from children from birth to age 15 and create a pathway plan for the child to help prepare them for independent living and leaving care when they turn 18.
The Late Entry Team:
This is a specialist team who support children entering care after their 14th birthday. This can include unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and children in need of Southwark Judgement Assessments. They receive referrals from the Home Office and the police in addition to taking on cases from Safeguarding and Support teams for children being looked after by the Local Authority. They perform duties such as visits, reviews, education plans, and care plans for looked after children between the ages of 14 and 18. The focus on pathway planning for children transitioning into adulthood who are subject to Care Orders or Section 20 Agreements. The team also performs age assessments and Human Rights assessments for asylum-seeking children.
Leaving Care Team
The Leaving Care team’s duty is to adequately prepare young people to live independently. They work with 18–21-year-olds and young people up to the age of 25 if they’re in higher education, making sure they are transitioned to adult care services where needed. The services provided for people over the age of 18 include:
- A personal Advisor who provides guidance and support.
- The creation of a Pathway Plan to help young people plan their future.
- Assistance with applying for support from benefit agencies or National Asylum Support Service (NASS).
The 0-25 Team
This specialist team consists of Child in Need workers and Social Workers who provide assessment and interventions to those who have special educational needs or a learning disability. This could include:
- A severe physical or learning disability.
- Being registered blind.
- Being deaf and needing alternative communication like BSL.
- Suffering from a terminal illness.
- Young people with Down Syndrome aged 14+
The support the team offers varies depending on a child’s individual needs and requirements, but it can include:
- Child in Need service which provides short breaks to children and their families as well as advice and guidance.
- Children and Child Protection plans where the threshold to do so has been met.
- Children in Care services where children reside in specialist residential settings.
Adoption and Permanency Team:
This team is divided into three areas:
- Kinship – they assess the ability of a family member or someone with strong connections to a child being able to act as a permanent carer for the child.
- Adoption – they assess, train and recruit prospective adopters. They use the services of a clinical Social Worker who can assist in finding families who would be appropriate for a child’s needs and then moving the child into an adoptive home.
- Post-Adoption support – they provide post-adoption support to families and adopted adults (including access to their records/counselling), access to the Adoption Support Fund and social events for adoptive families, administration of the Letter Box service, newsletter for adopters and supervision of any direct contact.
The Fostering Team
This team recruits and provides support to people who have the resources in place to foster a child currently in the care of Local Authority. Supervising Social Workers will work closely with allocated foster carers, making regular visits and supporting them with their placement if any issues arise. This can include attending Looked After Children’s Review meetings, advocating on behalf of the foster carer and the child in their care, as well as investigating issues around the standards of care and any allegations made about foster carers.
Recruitment Social Workers will also work with people who are interested in becoming foster carers – undertaking initial visits, assessing the potential foster carers ability to foster, and running ‘Skills to Foster Preparation’ group training.
Specialist Intervention Support Project
This is a multi-disciplinary team consisting of Clinical Social Workers, Family Therapists, Parenting Practitioners, and a Psychologist who can provide specialist ‘expert assessments’ to assist the courts when making a decision about a child’s long term future. They also provide intensive therapeutic support to families at risk of breakdown to help establish stronger familial relationships.
Participation Service
The Participation Service aims to give young people in care and care leavers the opportunity to have their voice heard and make an impact on services that affect their lives. The service runs forums such as the Children in Care Council and the Care Leavers Forum. They also hold consultation events for young people to give their views on any changes happening in the borough that might impact them.
The service has a training programme called ‘Total Respect’ where young people train social service professionals in how to better listen and communicate with children in care and make meaningful changes.
Placements Team
The Placements team help locate residential, fostering, and semi-independent care placements for looked after children and young people. This means identifying and commissioning high quality providers who meet our quality control requirements, implementing tight and robust contracting and procurement arrangements, and then monitoring the outcomes of these procurements.
Carebank
The Carebank service team provide sessional workers who undertake court directed supervised contact sessions.
Youth Offending Service
The Youth Offending Service is a multi-agency partnership between the council, police, London Probation Trust, and health partners.
The service has a duty to safeguard children and young people who are placed under its supervision by order of the court, preventing further reoffending, and protecting the public from any harm posed by the young offender. All orders imposed by the court must be rigorously enforced by the Youth Offending Service officers responsible. This is achieved through:
- Ensuring there are appropriate adults at police stations.
- Cautions and conditional cautions issued by the police which are supported by the Youth Offending Service.
- Bail assessment and bail supervision and support.
- Intensive supervision and surveillance as either a condition of bail or as a condition of a court order.
- The support of children and young people remanded to the care of the local authority.
- Provision of reports and other information in criminal proceedings.
- Supervision of orders imposed as a sentence by the courts in criminal proceedings. These may include youth rehabilitation orders, referral orders, reparation orders etc.
Safeguarding and Quality Assurance Team
This team covers the quality assurance of Child in Need, Child Protection, and Children in Care services. There are several functions within the team – these include:
- Being part of Hounslow’s Safeguarding Children’s Board to coordinate what is done locally to promote and protect the welfare of children and young people in the borough. They also monitor these arrangements to ensure better outcomes are achieved by children and young people in Hounslow.
- Independent Reviewing Officers, Child Protection Chairs, and Child in Need Reviewing Officers chair meetings for that ensure that practice and safeguarding measures in place meet local and national requirements.
- Safeguarding Officers (formerly Local Area Designated Officers) work on cases in which it is alleged that a person who works with children has behaved in a way that has harmed or may harm a child within Hounslow.
- The Learning and Development team are responsible for the training of practitioners across Children’s Services.
- Case progression Managers work alongside teams who hold cases which are due to go to court. They provide coaching and training to develop court work skills. They also track all cases with a legal element to monitor the effectiveness of current practice and can act as a liaison between the courts and the local authority.
- Exploitation and Vulnerabilities Co-ordinators give consultation on specialist areas of harm such as Child Sexual Exploitation, Missing children, Harmful Sexual Behaviour, and trafficking (within the UK, related to CSE/ Criminal Exploitation and County Lines).