Lead Child Protection Practitioner

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, [email protected]

Interviews will take place on Friday 20th November and Monday 23rd November