Training and Support
View vacanciesSocial Workers in Southend on Sea play a crucial role within our local community. It is essential that our Social Workers have access to all the advice, support and training they need to give the very best professional care to local Children and Families. We recognise the importance of relationships and emotional wellbeing in creating a learning culture where everyone feels empowered to achieve their professional and personal best.
Restorative Practice
Restorative Practice is our model of practice in Southend on Sea. Restorative Practice helps us to consider how our actions and responses affect our relationships. Even when we invest time and energy in building and maintaining relationships, there will be times that we fall out. However, when working restoratively, we access a repair process that helps mend relationships when this happens.
Our Restorative Practice training and development offer includes sessions focusing on:
- Principles of Restorative Practice
- Reflective Casework
- Outcome Based Planning
- Purposeful Management Oversight
- Restorative Model of Assessment or Chairing Restorative Conferences
We also offer Restorative Practice drop ins, Solution Circles and 1:1 Restorative Consultations delivered by Restorative Practice Ambassadors. Our staff members have access to the Restorative Practice platform where all the guidance and direct work tools can be easily accessed.
Building Strong Practice Programme (BSPP)
BSPP is our training offer, especially designed for Children and Adult’s Social Care Practitioners. The programme fits in well with the organisation’s values, supports our Restorative Practice approach and drives positive change in creating a learning culture in Southend on Sea.
A range of internal and external experts deliver workshops and training sessions to Social Care staff. The programme runs for six months and provides CPD in the key areas of practice that underpin all interaction and intervention with children and families.
The programme content provides clear practice expectations. This supports consistent, high quality practice across all teams and all practitioners and managers. The offer is diverse, rich and stimulating and promotes professional curiosity and reflective practice.
The programme is adapted based on feedback from quality assurance activity, children, young people and families, practitioners and managers, partners and changing needs. It is flexible enough to respond to emerging themes in Southend on Sea and nationally without delay.
Southend on Sea is a learning organisation
In Southend on Sea, we recognise that learning is a continual process, as we learn all the time from our experiences, interactions, training courses and other resources we access in day-to-day practice. In addition to our training offer, we provide a wide range of learning resources and tools to enable our staff to reach their full potential. For example, we offer peer learning, partnership work, support from subject matter experts, access to Social Work Library and Social Work Knowledge Platforms, apprenticeships, coaching and career pathways and much more. With formal and informal learning offered in Southend on Sea, you can be the master of your professional and personal development.
Your Emotional Wellbeing Matters to us!
In Southend on Sea, we believe that good mental health at work and good management go hand in hand. For many of us, work is a major part of our lives. It is where we spend much of our time, where we get our income from and where we make relationships. We all have times when life gets on top of us – sometimes that is work related, like deadlines or travel. Sometimes it is something else – our health, our circumstances. We offer free employee assistance programmes and emotional wellbeing sessions, such as self-care, relaxation, mindfulness, or meditation. You can access support from our Mental Health Champions, Restorative Mediators or receive peer support. In Southend on Sea, we are proud to be the workplace where everyone thrives and feel safe and supported to express and celebrate who they are.