Job overview
About the role
You will hold a small caseload of complex, high-risk cases while providing expert supervision, case consultation, and planned management for the team. You will contribute to intake decisions, case discussions, and service delivery planning, ensuring the highest standards of advocacy and safeguarding in line with ISVA, Home Office and Ministry of Justice guidance. You will lead quality assurance, audits, service improvement initiatives, and support research into children’s experiences of the criminal justice process.
You will represent the Lighthouse externally at case management meetings, support professional training and workshops, and ensure the voice of children, young people and families informs service development. You will promote contextual and transitional safeguarding across the service, contribute to clinical governance, and maintain high standards of risk management, documentation, and data reporting.
About you
You will be a qualified, experienced social worker with strong ISVA/ChISVA knowledge, confidence managing complex safeguarding cases, and proven leadership in supervising multidisciplinary teams. You will have exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with experience navigating highly sensitive, emotive or complex situations. You will value reflective practice, psychological safety, and collaborative partnership working.
Main duties of the job
• Lead on providing expert consultation and on child sexual abuse to community colleagues including childrens social care.
Hold a small caseload of complex, high-risk cases, delivering trauma-informed, child-centred direct interventions.
• Provide supervision, case consultation, guidance and planned case management to Child and Family Practitioners.
• Contribute to intake decisions, case discussions and multidisciplinary planning to ensure effective safeguarding and advocacy for children and families.
• Ensure compliance with ISVA, Home Office and Ministry of Justice guidance, and maintain high standards of clinical, safeguarding and operational governance.
• Lead and participate in quality assurance, audits, and research initiatives to improve the child’s experience of the criminal justice process.
• Support service development, continuous improvement, and the implementation of best-practice directives across the Lighthouse.
• Represent the Lighthouse at internal and external meetings, fostering strong partnership working with police, social care, legal partners, therapeutic services and community organisations.
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Working for our organisation
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is one of the most complex NHS trusts in the UK, serving a large and diverse population. We provide academically led acute and specialist services, to people from the local area, from throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. Our vision is to deliver top-quality patient care, excellent education, and world-class research.
We provide first-class acute and specialist services across eight sites:
1. University College Hospital (incorporating the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing)
2. National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery
3. Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals
4. University College Hospital Grafton Way Building
5. Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine
6. University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre
7. The Hospital for Tropical Diseases
8. University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street
We are dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of many complex illnesses. UCLH specialises in women’s health and the treatment of cancer, infection, neurological, gastrointestinal and oral disease. It has world class support services including critical care, imaging, nuclear medicine and pathology.
We are committed to sustainability and have pledged to become a carbon net zero health service, embedding sustainable practice throughout UCLH. We have set an ambitious target of net zero for our direct emissions by 2031 and indirect emissions by 2040.