Service Unit Manager (Cared for Children)

In Tameside we are committed to achieving the best outcomes for our Cared for Children. In order to support this goal there has been significant investment into the service to create additional capacity at all levels.
We have been recruiting into a number of posts within the Cared for Children Teams; we have a Special Guardianship Team which will progress SGO assessments through to supporting the SGO placement and plan and we have recruited additional capacity to complete work to progress reunification for children and discharge of care order work.
A number of exciting changes and developments are taking place within our Cared for Children service as we are driving quality care planning to achieve permanence for children in a timely way, with a real focus on enabling children to live safely within their own networks. The investment we have had as a service will enable us to offer manageable caseloads so we can deliver on our statutory and corporate parenting responsibilities and priorities but most importantly allows social workers to build relationships with children, young people and families. We work in a collaborative way with our colleagues in our Leaving Care, residential and fostering teams to ensure that we have a team approach to the work we do for our children and young people.
We are looking to recruit a Service Unit Manager to lead our four Cared for Children teams and our SGO team, as a unit within the wider service.
You will be responsible for the social work teams progressing care planning and permanency for children and young people in our care. The teams work with children and young people subject to a care order, or in our care under section 20 and who live with their parents, in foster placements, with connected carers and those in residential care. The service supports young people up to the age of 18 and ensures they are prepared for transitioning to our leaving care service., You will report to the Head of Service Cared for Children and you will be directly responsible for 5 Team Managers.

The successful candidate will have strong leadership skills, an excellent knowledge base of Cared for Children and will be able to create an environment where practice can flourish.
You will need to be committed to providing the best possible outcomes for Cared for Children, ensuring that we are meeting our priorities as identified in the corporate parenting strategy and action plan. Tameside is on an improvement journey and the successful candidate will ideally have experience of improving practice to achieve good outcomes for children, working in an environment of high challenge alongside high support., We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults and expects all staff to share this commitment.
This post is a designated customer facing role under the fluency duty and requires a specified level of spoken English.

Our commitment to you is that you will receive regular supervision from your line manager and a good offer of training from our workforce development. We are a supportive leadership team, and we encourage practice in a supportive way to encourage learning and development and we will work flexibly and creatively with you.
Our service is also absolutely committed to the 7 Corporate Parenting principles and the successful candidate will continue to ensure these principles are embedded across our service delivery and that the voice of children & young people is at the centre of all our planning processes and our service improvements.
In Tameside, we like to look after our employees and offer a fantastic range of employee rewards and benefits, including:

• Minimum of 28 days leave each year (plus 8 bank holidays)


• 36 hours working week


• Health and wellbeing support


• Salary sacrifice schemes


• Family friendly policies, including maternity, paternity and adoption leave


• Access to the Local Government Pension Scheme


• Discounts at local shops, health & fitness clubs, restaurants and much more