Employee benefits

We recognise the importance of rewarding our employees for their hard work supporting our communities. We offer a great range of benefits, rewards and support to our employees to help them thrive in their career.

What can you expect if you come to work in Children's Services in Powys

Competitive Pay

These pay scales are accurate as of 1^st April 2024.

• Grade 10 Newly Qualified Social Worker £37,035 - £38,626        
• Grade 11 Social Worker £39,513 - £41,511
• Grade 12 Senior Social Worker £42,708 - £44,711
• Grade 13 Principal Social Worker £46,731 - £48,710
• Grade 14 Team Manager £50,788 - £52,805

Induction

Powys Children services has a comprehensive induction programme to support new members of staff into their roles.

Supervision and Appraisals

All qualified social work staff receive a minimum of monthly supervision and an annual appraisal as well as ongoing support as required from their manager.

Mentoring

During the first year of practice, you will be assigned a mentor, this further supports the implementation of strengths-based practice.  As part of their role, our mentors work closely with our senior managers to develop and improve our services.  You may also be given the opportunity to undertake mentor training to provide additional support to our teams whilst fostering a culture of continuous learning in a safe environment. 

In-house Psychology Service

A Clinical Psychologist is based in Children's Services with a role to support staff in thinking about

children and families whom they are supporting. Staff and carers can access case consultations and

the Psychologist provides group reflective/case discussion sessions for specific teams.

Our Psychologist works with Senior Managers to identify and develop initiatives and resources for promoting and supporting staff wellbeing, which is a key priority within the service.

Training and Development

If you are looking for an organisation to progress in your career, then Powys is the place for you. We invest in all our employees to make sure that they have the right skills, training and experiences to provide a first-class service to the residents of Powys children, young people and families. We have a comprehensive learning and development programme to support all staff in professional development. We regularly invite guest speakers to talk with our operational management team and have welcomed speakers from around the world. We have recently received talks from specialist Psychologist Dr Treisman, independent trainer and consultant Siobhan McClean and Surviving Safeguarding author Annie Bertram.

We hold regular staff roadshows throughout the county to allow all staff to have opportunities to put forward their ideas for improvement, provide feedback, share achievements and provide recognition of the work staff undertake on a daily basis.

We support a "grow your own" ethos and annually put forward candidates to undertake the Social Work degree training. However, our "grow your own" ethos is wider than social work and we have seen staff progress to a variety of promoted roles including up to senior manager level.

We support our employees to keep their knowledge and skills up-to-date and to continually strive for improvement.

Newly Qualified Social Workers

We provide a robust support package to our Newly Qualified Social Workers and have implemented and strengthened the national First Three Years in Practice Framework.  We have developed new Practice Guidance, which includes the following key areas:

• A longer more robust induction period with extended shadowing opportunities in order to build networks and knowledge of local services and teams.
• Facilitated monthly support groups for all Newly Qualified Social Workers.
• Incremental guidance on the workload and complexity of the workload.
• Regular mentoring and supervision
• A day each month in your first year of practice to work on your own personal development and portfolio of practice.
• Regular developmental reviews with the workforce development team.

Health and Care Academy

We have worked in collaboration with our partners to develop a Health and Care Academy in Powys which offers face-to-face and digital enabled learning opportunities.  The Powys Health and Care Academy is part of a Wales-wide response to increasing access to education and training across the health and care sector and is being further developed with the intention that it will be the core provider in the county by 2027.

Engagement

Our staff have opportunities to put forward their innovative ideas for improvement, provide feedback and identify good news stories.  The Director of Social Services has created an employee representative group which staff are encouraged to join, this meeting is attended by the Director of Social Services, Heads of Service and Senior Managers and there is no topic "off limits".