Our Values

It’s great to know that you are interested in working with us at Coventry City Council. As a prospective employee, it is important that everyone who works for us is committed to our One Coventry values and shares our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation. 

Our Values are:

About the team we are recruiting to

We value diverse perspectives and experiences and are striving to create a workplace culture that is inclusive, is accepting of all and is free from discrimination and bias.

In Coventry, we are working hard to build something special. Children and families are at the heart of everything we do, and we believe they deserve the best outcomes.  

Children’s Services provides a wide range of statutory and non-statutory duties, from Early Help Services, through to safeguarding children, children who are looked after, are leaving care or adopted.  

The service reflects and responds to the changing needs of children and their families.  It works to enable a reflective and flexible approach, with a strong Early Help offer and a real focus on Relationship Based Practice and Signs of Safety, which focuses on strengthening and keeping families together. 

Coventry Children’s Services is proud of its achievements to date and is continuing to ensure children and families remain at the heart of all it does.  We will provide you with an environment where practice with children and families can flourish and make the most difference, with high support and high challenge at the forefront.

Coventry is passionate about creating something special, where families are valued, where risks can be safely managed within the family and their network, and where families are empowered and enabled to do it differently.

We believe that families are the experts in their own lives, and we want to embrace this and create change through this; by working with them to take the lead in their plans, in their support package and in decision making.

We are building a service based on relationship and restorative based practice in line with our Signs of Safety methodology and the family valued model enables children services to only intervene when it has to, enabling the opportunity for the family to have more control.

What is the job role?

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a LADO in Coventry City Council Children’s Services, to deliver the statutory functions of the Designated Officer role  in line with Working Together 2018.

As the LADO, you will have responsibility for the management of allegations against people in a position of trust who work with children under 18 in a paid or voluntary capacity, you will also provide consultation, oversight and management of wider risk in the context of child safeguarding and extra familial harm including that relating to historical allegations and investigations. 

You will be required to chair allegations (Position of Trust) meetings and provide advice, guidance, support and challenge to employers, partner agencies and organisations regarding employees who face such allegations. 

This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Who are we looking for?

You will be a qualified, accomplished and confident Social Worker with demonstrable recent in LADO or senior child safeguarding roles. You will have a proven ability to strategically manage risk and complex investigations whilst driving forward improvements in service delivery.

You must be able to work with a level of professional responsibility and autonomy and be able to deal with complex situations that span child safeguarding, employment and HR processes. You will evidence that you can manage this in tandem with professional partners, regulatory and professional bodies.

For an informal conversation about the role please contact Sam Sharkey sam.sharkey@coventry.gov.uk

As a Council we recognise that our workforce is not representative of the communities that we serve, particularly at senior leadership level; therefore we welcome applications from candidates who are from minority ethnic backgrounds, have a disability, or who identify as being from the LGBTQ+ community.

For full details on the application process please read the attached document on our jobs page labelled 'Coventry City Council Application Process'

Interview date: 27th September 2023

If you'd like to learn more about being a Social Worker here at Coventry City Council, please join us for an Open Evening at the Council House on Thursday 28th September from 4pm – 7pm.

To register your attendance please fill in a short Form to tell us you’re coming.

About Coventry

Coventry has a proud, innovative and creative spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and bring about real social change.

We are cutting-edge, challenging, youthful, vibrant and diverse.

At Coventry we are committed to excellence in everything we do. With around 4800 staff from a range of different backgrounds, our aim is to recruit and develop talented people who will focus on our customers, take responsibility, work together and find better ways of doing things.

To deliver the best services to our residents, we need the best people working for us to make a difference to our communities.

If you join us, we will provide a fantastic rewards and benefits package - to find out more please visit https://www.coventry.gov.uk/council-vacancies

Coventry City Council