Safeguarding Children Advisor

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To have excellent knowledge of local/national policies and procedures that are relevant to health care provision for vulnerable children; including a working knowledge of the relevant legislation, government guidance and recommendations of serious case reviews.

To provide clinical leadership, specialist advice and support on safeguarding children issues to practitioners, managers and other staff across the .

Have the ability to make judgments about highly complex situations, requiring analysis, interpretation and comparisons of a range of options and escalation of concerns where necessary.

Support managers to ensure safeguarding children supervision is provided across the  services and where required provide individual or group safeguarding supervision.

To contribute to and where appropriate, to lead in quality improvement initiatives across the service where improvements have impact on the safeguarding children.

Support practitioners in multi-agency working such as attendance at child protection conferences/strategy meetings and in the preparation of written reports for conferences and legal proceedings.

Assist with the collection of data and presentation of reports, advising managers on the implications for service and planning.

To ensure that clinical governance principles are an integral part of all Safeguarding children arrangements.

In conjunction with the Named Nurse contribute to the Local Safeguarding Children Board [LSCB]/Safeguarding Partnership activity through its sub groups/safeguarding arrangements.

Provide cover and deputise for the Named Nurse where necessary.

Liaise with local Children’s Services MASH (multi-agency safeguarding hub) teams and provide health information as appropriate as well as contribute to multi-agency planning and decision making.

Provide cover for the MASH Health service where necessary.

Partnership and Communications

To promote and develop collaborative interagency working on all issues relating to safeguarding children working closely with staff in CNWL, local statutory and voluntary agencies in order to develop and deliver high standards of practice to children and families.

To liaise with a range of professionals both in CNWL and in the wider health economy to ensure effective information sharing where safeguarding concerns are known about a child, young person or their wider family.

Participate in Trustwide staff team meetings where needed to advise and support regarding safeguarding children issues and ensure staff maintain a ‘Think Family’ and ‘Together with Families’ approach in their work.

Participate in working parties and ‘task and finish’ groups both internally and externally to ensure that the safeguarding of children, young people and their families is always considered in any change management process.

To advise on legal matters, liaising with and supporting clinical managers and practitioners in court attendances where appropriate.

Education, Training and Development

Work collaboratively with others to identify individual and group training needs and contribute to the development of the CNWL safeguarding children training strategy.

To participate in the planning, delivery and evaluation of a range of safeguarding children training programmes including Trust Induction programmes.

To contribute to the training sub group of the LSCB and collaborate in the development of training programmes for all practitioners whose work brings them into contact with children and families.

Ensure own knowledge, skills and training are maintained through continued learning and development activity.

Source emerging National evidence relating to safeguarding children and disseminate this to staff across CNWL and within the safeguarding children team.

Supervision

To ensure that staff have access to high quality safeguarding supervision through a range of activities such as group supervision or direct reflective supervisory work with practitioners.

Ensure accurate recording of supervision in a child’s electronic record and their parent/carer record where appropriate, and in staff appraisal documents.

Monitor the effectiveness of safeguarding supervision through case reviews and audits of practice.

Provide restorative supervision where required to staff who may have been involved in a highly complex case or a serious case review.

Seek out and utilise effective supervision for self.

Clinical Governance and Performance

To work with the named professionals, clinical governance team, service managers and operational directors to identify any areas of risk for the Trust regarding safeguarding children and contribute to managing and reducing those risks.

Contribute to the collection, reporting and presentation of data relating to safeguarding children activity

To evaluate and review safeguarding practice and ensure that staff have knowledge of and are able to utilise current local/National policies and guidance.

To contribute to the review and implementation of Trust standards and policies relating to safeguarding children.

In collaboration with the named professionals conduct audits to evaluate safeguarding children practice and contribute to the annual  audit plan.

To monitor that recommendations of all internal audits, serious case reviews, inspections and statutory and other guidance are incorporated into changes in practice.

Consider the findings of relevant published research studies and summarise the key findings for distribution to relevant commissioners, health staff and other agencies as appropriate.

To initiate and participate in relevant research and keep up to date with evidence based practice.

Other

Demonstrate flexibility in carrying out any other duties commensurate with the grade and in line with the developmental nature of the post.

To take responsibility for own professional development.

Rider Clause

This is an outline of the post-holder’s duties and responsibilities. It is not intended as an exhaustive list and may change from time to time in order to meet the changing needs of the Trust and Department.