Professional Lead
An exciting opportunity has become available to work within Social Care Reform, Practice Assurance and Development in the Adult Social Care Department, within Adults Health and Integration Directorate. The position is for 30 hours per week.
About you
You will act as a champion of excellence in Adult Social Care social work practice, providing expert professional leadership, scrutiny and challenge to ensure high‑quality, safe and effective practice across the organisation. You will work closely with Practice Managers, Social Workers and partner agencies to embed nationally recognised standards, strengthen professional capability and drive continuous improvement.
You will lead and support workforce development activity by identifying practice and skills gaps through training needs analysis, contributing to the Adult Social Care workforce strategy and annual training plan, and commissioning or delivering targeted learning solutions. This includes overseeing the professional development of specialist roles (such as Practice Educators, Approved Mental Health Professionals and Best Interest Assessors), facilitating practice excellence forums and action learning, and embedding research‑informed practice.
As part of the role, you will provide professional advice, supervision and peer support, particularly to newly qualified staff and those in specialist roles, and contribute to quality assurance through observation of practice, audit, and learning from complaints and reviews. You will ensure learning and development policies and provision meet local, regional and national priorities, align with regulatory and legislative requirements, and support safe, person‑centred and outcome‑focused practice.
The role is diverse with no one day the same, for more information on the role please view the 'In this job you will' section within the attached job description specification document.
The successful candidate will have:
1. Substantial post qualifying experience as a frontline Social Worker or Approved Mental Health Professional, preferably working in a Local Authority setting;
2. Experience of Practice Education/student supervision, training delivery or coaching;
3. Experience of performance and change management;
4. A high degree of interpersonal skills;
5. Theoretical and practical knowledge of social work practice;
6. A flexible approach to work;
7. Knowledge of the legislation and statutory and policy framework in relation to Adult Social Care.