Lead Child Protection Practitioner

Join Harrow Children’s Services

Be part of an ambitious Children’s Social Care service improving outcomes for children and families.

The London Borough of Harrow is embarking on an exciting period of change as we deliver a series of ambitious Children’s Reforms Programmes – including Families First, Best Start Family Hubs, Best Start in Life and SEND Reforms. We strive to help every child thrive and through the reforms we are reshaping our future support for children, young people and families across the borough.

As part of the Families First Programme, we are building a practice system where relationships are key, where we work alongside children and families encouraging family led decision making and offering multi-disciplinary help when its needed.  We are building on our strengths to further improve our approach to child protection, remodelling our system to create a dedicated Multi-Agency Child Protection Service (MACPS), to have the lead role in keeping children and adolescents safe.

Are you an experienced child protection social worker with the expertise, confidence and professional curiosity to lead complex safeguarding decision-making? Harrow Council is seeking Lead Child Protection Practitioners to join our Multi-Agency Child Protection Team and play a central role in strengthening statutory child protection practice across Children’s Services.

This is a specialist role for a qualified and registered social worker who can provide expert leadership across Section 47 child protection enquiries, strategy discussions, child protection conferences and multi-agency safeguarding activity. Working alongside partners from police, health, education and wider children’s services, you will help ensure that children and young people are protected from significant harm and that families receive clear, timely and proportionate intervention.

The role is directly aligned to the Lead Child Protection Practitioner Standards, which set out the knowledge and skills required to effectively lead child protection processes.

You will be expected to demonstrate strong capability in identifying and responding to actual or likely significant harm; engaging children and families during Section 47 enquiries; formulating risk and likelihood of significant harm; and planning and intervening to prevent or stop harm.

As Lead Child Protection Practitioner, you will provide consultation, challenge and guidance to social workers and partner agencies, promoting high-quality analysis, defensible decision-making and child-centred planning. You will bring together information from across the professional network, support robust assessment of risk inside and outside the home, and ensure safeguarding responses are relational, trauma-informed, anti-racist, inclusive and proportionate.

About the role

You will work within a co-located Multi-Agency Child Protection Team, exercising the local authority’s statutory child protection duties in line with the Children Act 1989, the Children Act 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children, the London Child Protection Procedures and Harrow’s local safeguarding arrangements.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Leading and coordinating Section 47 child protection enquiries across Children’s Services.
• Chairing strategy meetings, child protection conferences and other complex multi-agency safeguarding discussions.
• Providing expert consultation, guidance and professional challenge to social workers, managers and partner agencies.
• Supporting timely, evidence-informed and defensible decision-making where children may be suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm.
• Contributing to protection and safety planning that is clear, purposeful and focused on improving outcomes for children and young people.
• Promoting high standards of recording, analysis, information-sharing and quality assurance across the child protection pathway.
• Modelling relational, strengths-based, trauma-informed and culturally competent practice with children, families and professionals.

We are looking for a confident and experienced practitioner who can bring professional authority, sound judgement and a strong commitment to child-centred safeguarding.

You will have significant operational experience in statutory child protection and a strong understanding of intra-familial and extra-familial harm, including adolescent exploitation and risk outside the home.

You will be able to demonstrate:

• A recognised social work qualification and current Social Work England registration.
• Significant recent experience in front-line statutory child protection practice.
• Detailed knowledge of child protection legislation, statutory guidance, the London Child Protection Procedures and relevant multi-agency safeguarding processes.
• Experience of chairing or leading complex child protection meetings, including strategy discussions, child protection conferences or risk outside the home meetings.
• Strong risk analysis, professional curiosity and the ability to hold complexity, uncertainty and multiple hypotheses.
• The ability to work collaboratively with families and partners while providing clear professional challenge when needed.
• Be committed to inclusive and culturally competent practice, ensuring anti-discriminatory engagement with children and families.

For more information, please refer to the Role Profile/Selection Criteria

This post requires an enhanced DBS check, satisfactory health and work record, and the ability to travel for business purposes where required. We operate a hybrid working model with office base and work from home and this role requires the majority of time within the borough working closely with children, families, social workers, managers and multi-agency safeguarding partners.

If you are ready to bring expert child protection leadership to a role where your professional judgement, challenge and partnership working will make a direct difference, we would welcome your application.

Further reading: Lead Child Protection Practitioner Standards

For a pre application conversation please contact Sara Taylor, sara.taylor@harrow.gov.uk