Support staff available to our Social Workers

Business Support, Admin and Team Coordinators

Our operational teams and social workers all have access to a range of support staff to help them undertake their roles. This includes designated team co-ordinators within each team, a pool of administrators and data quality coordinators. These support staff are incredibly helpful, skilled and do everything they can to support and help our operational teams to manage their workloads and spend more time working with children, young people and their families.

Intervention and Prevention services

Our teams also have access to intervention and prevention services that include edge of care, placement stability and the Integrated Family Support Team (IFST).

These teams are accessed through a consultation with team leaders reducing the need in completing additional referrals forms. The services work with a strength-based model to promote the ethos that families can be successful and achieve their goals. The IFST team have additional training in motivational interviewing and change theory.

Interventions are delivered by staff trained in the trauma recovery model and staff receive quality supervision and guidance to ensure that all aspects have been considered within a family to guarantee the right outcomes are achieved.

The IFST team have a small team of workers who work intensely with families alongside the Social Work staff, we have a mental health nurse professional and a substance misuse specialist.

Powys have an active participation officer who ensures that the child's voice is heard at all levels. On occasions the participation officer has worked 1:1 with children who feel they are struggling to have their voice heard by the professionals who support them.

Family time within Powys sits outside of the childcare teams and support all service areas to provide a good quality service. This allows children to keep in touch with their families for the purpose of assessment and maintaining a relationship.

Powys Residential Homes

Powys have 4 residential units that house children with behavioural concerns as well as one that works with children who have a physical disability. The homes house Powys children who are looked after through our closer to home initiative, the joint working with the units and the social work teams ensure that childcare plans are relevant and well supported to ensure the best care is afforded to our children looked after.

Youth Justice Service

The Youth Justice Service (YJS) works with young people who have been involved in offending behaviour. The team comprises of staff from Social Services, Education, Police, Probation and Health to ensure a seamless multi-agency approach. The service works with young people on a statutory and preventative level and works with victims as part of a restorative justice approach. The service will look at each situation to decide on the best intervention for the young person.

Safeguarding and Quality Assurance:

This service area includes our Child protection chairs / Independent reviewing officers, the Child Exploitation team and the practice development team (workforce).

Child Exploitation Team

The Child Exploitation Team has one Team Manager, and four Child Exploitation Intervention Workers who can undertake direct work with Children and families and/or carers.

The team directly support children and parents to provide a trauma informed approach to children's recovery from exploitation. They can also support the child's professional network to raise awareness of exploitation, provide advice surrounding safety planning and the importance of the use of language when working with children who have experienced this form of abuse. Strategy meetings concerning child exploitation are chaired by the Child Exploitation Manager to ensure a consistent approach.

The Child Exploitation team facilitate quarterly 'Community of Practice' sessions which supports Children's services practitioners, partner agencies and third sector colleagues to come together and consider evidence based best practice within prevention, identification, disruption, and recovery. The sessions are well embedded within the Powys training calendar and have received consistently positive feedback.