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The Family Support and Safeguarding Service

The Family Support and Safeguarding Service accepts referrals from the Assessment Team following the completion of a Single Assessment, as well as from other local authorities if a family known to them moves into our Borough and needs ongoing support, The aim of the Family Support and Safeguarding Service is to ensure that children are safe and being well cared for within their families (where possible), so that they no longer need our help.

Social Workers in Family Support and Safeguarding have a variety of cases assigned to them; including Child in Need (CiN), Child Protection (CP), Looked After Children (CLA) and some Court work. Where our intervention results in a child being safe and being well cared for within their own family, we can either step across to Tier 2 services or close our involvement.

However where we are unable to achieve our aim of keeping the child safe and well cared for we then look to ensure that children are provided with permanent alternative carers, via their extended family, or with foster carers or adopters. When this happens, we transfer case responsibility to our Corporate Parenting and Permanence Service.

Our focus is on achieving the best outcomes for children and their families and to meet this aim we work closely with our multi agency partners to provide:

  • Support and services to children in need
  • Child protection investigations and child protection plans
  • Legal intervention through “pre proceedings” or “care proceedings”
  • Reports written for court in private family matters
  • Referrals onto other agencies who can offer specialist intervention

Youth Justice Service (Youth Offending Service)

Our Adolescent and Youth Offending Service is a multi-agency service that supports vulnerable young people at risk of exploitation, harm and offending. There is a whole system approach whereby the whole council and partners work together to tackle adolescent issues.

The Team pulls together a range of distinct services in a coordinated way ensuring that our offer is well aligned to the needs of our young people. The service, and the wider approach to Contextual Safeguarding across the partnership is framed by the development of the new partnership wide, Safeguarding Children’s Board commissioned Exploitation Strategy.

The team works with missing children and those at risk of CSE, exploitation, radicalisation, county lines, criminal exploitation, trafficking and modern slavery.

Assessment and Intervention Service

The Assessment and Intervention Service is the receiver of those cases deemed by MASH to have met the threshold for social care intervention. The Service is responsible for undertaking Child and Family Assessments under Section 17 of the Children’s Act (1989), as well as undertaking Section 47 Child Protection Investigations in line with London Child Protection Procedures and Working Together guidelines (2018). In completing the assessments, the Assessment and Intervention Service considers the needs of the children and young people and the risks they are likely to experience. The assessments are holistic, focusing on the child, his/her family and involve partner agencies.

The specialist Pre-Birth Team sits under the Assessment and Intervention Service as an additional assessment team to focus on the unborn babies, where some prospective parents may need additional support during the pregnancy and for the care of their baby or in some circumstances it may be anticipated that the baby yet to be born is likely be at risk of significant harm. The team benefits from the expertise of the Family Support Workers and a Health Visitor who will work with the prospective parents at the earliest opportunity, considering all aspects of their capacity to parent.

The Assessment and Intervention Service works with children and their families only for a short period of time, to allow assessment to be completed and a plan to be formulated from the identified needs. Where there is a need for ongoing social work involvement those cases with Child In Need Plan or Child Protection Plan will transfer to Family Support and Safeguarding Service or signposted to other relevant identified services. The Service will also occasionally issue care proceedings in an emergency or accommodate a child under Section 20 of the Children’s Act (1989).

The Service is made up of five Assessment Teams and one Pre-Birth Team managed under six Team Managers and two Service Managers:

  • Assessment Team 1
  • Assessment Team 2
  • Assessment Team 3
  • Assessment Team 4
  • Assessment Team 5

Pre-Birth Assessment Team

The Frontline Unit also sits under Assessment Service with three students who have now graduated into ASYE programme and is overseen by the Consultant Social Worker. There are also other ASYEs within the service who are supported under the Local Authority ASYE programme.

MASH

The MASH is the point of contact for any person or agency who has safeguarding concerns regarding a child.

Where appropriate, the MASH gathers research from a range of partner agencies relevant to each individual child/family and assesses the information to determine the level of actual or potential risk/harm and recommends appropriate action to safeguard the child and/or promote his/her welfare.

MASH enables the proportionate, necessary, and lawful disclosure of information at the earliest opportunity. A full picture of vulnerability and risk is produced within agreed timescales allowing the partnership to identify the nature of the service required and which agency or professional is best to progress any intervention.

The MASH benefits are principally in three areas:

  • informed risk-based decisions for safeguarding vulnerable children/families
  • identification of harm to vulnerable children/families
  • enhanced strategic partnership assessment and problem solving

The MASH Manager is the main decision maker/point of support/ consultation for all staff within and outside of the MASH for all MASH related issues.

The MASH is made up of a range of organisations in Barking and Dagenham that are responsible for safeguarding adults and children, these include:

  • The Metropolitan Police
  • Community Health
  • National Probation Service
  • Youth Offending Service
  • Subwize
  • The Council’s Community Solutions including housing and early help
  • Change Grow Live

Specialist Intervention Service

Our Specialist Intervention Service (SIS) works with Tier 3 families who are deemed to be at the edge of coming into care, by delivering targeted interventions of support to complement social work.
The service offers a collaborative response from practitioners across our Family Group Conference, Restorative Intervention, Family Support Work, Therapeutic Support, Family Time Contact, Parental Substance Misuse, Volunteer Offer and Lasting Links functions.

Practitioners deliver a range of 1:1 practical work, and therapeutic work with children, parents, extended families, friends and carers.

The SIS responds to families by offering a bespoke package of support, delivered in a creative and relational manner. The analysis of the work helps inform decision-making with and for families by social work teams.

The interventions provided are complementary to the casework, with ultimate responsibility for the case resting with the allocated caseworker.

The Adults Life Planning Team is part of the Disabilities

Barking & Dagenham is committed to supporting a more resilient community through prevention, early intervention, and support, to better support Adults and Children across all our services.

We are currently recruiting for various roles, which need employees who are passionate about adult social work to join our Life Planning team. 

You will be required to fulfill the statutory requirement as per the Care Act 2014, supporting adults at risk within our borough with care and support needs. You will work in collaboration with health partners, to ensure a holistic and joined-up level of support is provided to this vulnerable group. We expect you to contribute to the team – helping us develop and improve standards.

Working alongside other social workers, business support staff and colleagues in the Life Planning Teams and colleagues in other areas and stakeholders, the role provides a life planning social work service for adults with disabilities, their families, and carers. Providing services that are fair and accessible to all, challenging practices that do not support this, and promoting the Customer First proposition across the Council, the role ensures equality of opportunity in service standards and delivery.

Special Requirements for our Roles

The posts are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and a comprehensive screening process will be undertaken on successful applicants including a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check at an enhanced level for both children and adults. 

Departmental Benefits of this role 

  • regular formal reflective supervision, informal and peer supervision
  • regular Team Meetings and Group discussions including CPD sessions
  • friendly and supportive environment
  • quality training and opportunities for professional development. 

Skills Required 

  • understanding or willingness to understand Adult Social Care legislation and guidance framing their work
  • the ability to form positive relationships with service users and carers and other professionals
  • able to undertake a range of statutory assessments and formulate support plans
  • able to prioritise work effectively based on need and risk 
  • ability to work effectively as part of a team
  • be able to make complex decisions and demonstrate management of risk
  • excellent verbal and written communication skills

Jobs on Offer

  • Team Managers
  • Consultant Social Workers
  • Social Workers
  • Apprentice Social Workers

Joining Us

The Adults Life Planning Team is part of the Disabilities whole life portfolio encapsulating the entire life journey. The remit is diverse and includes physical and sensory disabilities, Learning Difficulties, Autism and acquired brain injury. The work is varied and interesting and no two days are the same so no risk of getting bored here!

We are expanding and restructuring our team to meet the increasing demand and forthcoming changes of the statutory governance framework and are offering a wide range of career opportunities from Apprentices, Social workers, Consultant Social workers, and Team Managers Barking & Dagenham is a great place to work, and we offer excellent opportunities for profession career progression combined with accelerated access to enhanced practitioner programmes such as AMHP qualification, BIA, and Practice Educators to name a few.

Once people join us, they stay, and our retention figures are high with our mental Health service having the highest retention figures across London. This commitment to our staff and their personal and professional development makes us an employer of choice. Because of our low use of agency staff, we are pledged to offer the best access to quality learning opportunities and the only obstacle to you progressing with us is yourself!

Barking and Dagenham is an exciting council to work for although we have significant challenges, the Council has the most ambitious house building programmes in London and huge infrastructure projects. We even have our own film studios!

If you want a career with a forward-thinking innovative authority where you are supported to make a difference to the lives of residents, then you need to join us. You will be joining an established and expanding team with a broad demographic who are supportive and welcoming. We positively encourage diversity and welcome applications from all sectors of our communities. We have strong staff forums including LGBTQI+, BME Disabilities and here in LBBD their voices are heard and listened to.

So, what are you waiting for come and join us…