About this role
Job summary
We are looking for Band 7 Health Practitioners with current significant safeguarding experience to work in the new Gloucestershire Multi-Agency Child Protection Team as the Health Safeguarding Specialist Practitioner.
This is an office based role working with the MACPT in the locality base, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
You will use your local knowledge of Gloucestershire to maintain an understanding of patterns of significant harm in the local area and agency responses, whilst working with MASH healthand the wider health economy, including GHFT, GHC and Primary Care.
Your role includes quality assuring health input into multi-agency plans and addressing any delays or barriers in health service contributions. You will work collaboratively with Family Help Lead Practitioners and their teams, offering consultation, oversight, and group supervision across Gloucestershire health system.
This role also involves coordinating with health partners as needed, while actively promoting trauma-informed and systemic practice. Through timely advice and integrated working, you will help safeguard children by ensuring health needs are fully considered in all child protection processes.
Main duties of the job
As the Health Safeguarding Specialist Practitioner, you will be a key member of the Gloucestershire Multi-Agency Child Protection Team, working alongside Lead Child Protection Practitioners, the Harm Outside the Home Social Work Lead, Police Officers, the Education Safeguarding Lead, and a Probation Link Worker.
You will bring specialist health expertise to child protection decision-making, ensuring that health perspectives inform strategy discussions, Section 47 enquiries, and child protection case conferences in a meaningful way.
The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.
About us
We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.
Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:
72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question. 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region. 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.
This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.
Job description Job responsibilities
Provide specialist health input, analysis, and decision making within multi-agency child protection meetings and strategy discussions.
Liaise with MASH Health and the wider health economy, including GHFT, GHC and Primary Care, to ensure appropriate health representation and the coordination of relevant information sharing when child protection processes are underway. This includes coordinating health information gathering for strategy meetings, child protection conferences, single assessments, and legal planning, and where an expert clinical opinion (e.g. pediatrician) is required, liaising to obtain that advice and summarizing the implications for the childs safety and wellbeing.
Liaise with relevant health service providers to address gaps or delays in necessary health services for vulnerable children subject to child protection planning, and ensure proactive steps are taken to support access to essential health care, including registration with a GP, dentist, optician, and other services as required.
Undertake or arrange comprehensive health assessments of children and young people where safeguarding concerns have been identified, when indicated.
Coordinatehealthinput for children where safeguarding concerns have been identified, addressing gaps inhealthassessments when necessary. Focus on compilinghealthchronologies, supporting multi-agency assessments, and providing a clear healthview to facilitate integration across agencies.
Collaborate closely with social care, education, police, and voluntary sector partners to develop and implement Child Protection Plans.
Contribute to risk assessments and the formulation of multi-agency action plans to ensure the safety and welfare of children and families, including liaising with health lead to review and summarize any missed health appointments and assess the implications for the childs wellbeing.
Advocate for the health needs of children and families within child protection processes.
Attend relevant strategy discussions, case conferences, core groups, and other multi-agency meetings as required.
Identify, escalate and respectfully challenge where health contributions are insufficient, delayed or risk decisions are unsafe and support resolution through multi-agency escalation pathways.
Required to communicate effectively with a wide range of people on a day-to-day basis in highly complex, sensitive and difficult matters utilising persuasive, motivational, negotiating, and empathetic and reassurance skills on a frequent basis.
Participate in audits, reviews, and continuous improvement initiatives relating to safeguarding and child protection.
Contribute to the development, review and quality assurance of policies, procedures, and protocols relating to safeguarding within the MACPT and the FFPP.
Deliver health-related safeguarding training, supervision, and support to colleagues in health and other agencies regarding safeguarding best practice.
Provide consultation and group supervision from a health perspective to Family Help Lead Practitioners and their teams.
Ensure that Child Protection process outcomes, reports, and plans are up to date and accurate across key health clinical systems used in Gloucestershire, namely SystmOne, Rio, BadgerNet, and TrakCare.
Maintain accurate, timely, and confidential records in accordance with NHS and multi-agency protocols.
The Trustis required towork in line with the Governments UK Visa and Immigration Rules and Regulations. For more information about sponsorship for certain roles, please visit -https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas
Person Specification
Qualifications Essential
Professional knowledge acquired through degree supplemented by post graduate diploma specialist training, experience, short courses plus further specialist training to master's equivalent level Registered Nurse, Midwife or Allied Health Professional with current NMC/HCPC registration
Desirable
Postgraduate qualification (or equivalent experience) in safeguarding/child protection Evidence of continuing professional development in safeguarding and child protection
Experience Essential
Significant post-registration experience working with children, young people, and families in health settings Demonstrable experience of working in frontline safeguarding and child protection, preferably within a multi-agency context, with contribution to safeguarding threshold decision making Skilled at triangulating information and interpreting health and multiagency data to analyse and articulate the health impact of a situation upon a child or young person Comprehensive understanding of legislation, guidance, and best practice in safeguarding children Excellent IT skills and experience of working across multiple health clinical systems e.g. Rio, System 1, TrakCare and Sunrise and BadgerNet.
Desirable
Experience of undertaking health assessments and coordinating health related action plan Experience of delivering training and supporting colleagues in safeguarding practice Safeguarding supervision training and experience facilitating sessions Evidence of leading projects that have resulted in organisational change. Evidence of working alongside agencies working with children in Gloucestershire and knowledge of their Organisational structures. Experience of participating in audits and collecting data
Disclosure and Barring Service Check This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details Employer name Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
Address Edward Jenner Court
1010 Pioneer Avenue, Brockworth
Gloucester
GL3 4AW
United Kingdom
Employer's website https://www.ghc.nhs.uk/who-we-are/jobs/ (Opens in a new tab)