A word from Andrea Houlahan, Deputy Strategic Director for Children's Social Care and Early Help Services
Welcome, and thank you for your interest in this role.
Here at Gateshead Council, we believe that 'The strength of Gateshead is the people of Gateshead'. When times are tough, we come together and deliver for one another, working tirelessly for the benefit of our communities, putting people and families and young people in our care at the heart of everything that we do.
We are ambitious and take pride in in the fact that Gateshead is rated 'Good' by Ofsted with a clear and focused ambition to deliver high quality services to children and families. We are ready for our next Ofsted inspection, proud and confident that we have furthered our journey to become 'Outstanding' since 2019.
We are proud of our reputation for innovation, and we embrace our diversity, culture and heritage and have a relentless focus on reducing inequalities, to make Gateshead a place for everyone to enjoy because we embrace diversity and want everyone to feel included.
If you share our vision and can demonstrate your commitment to our values, we have a new role that will help us to deliver our mission to the borough's residents.
In this exciting new role, you'll provide strategic leadership, vision and direction for the Children in Care and Resources services, working closely with me to enable the delivery of the Council's Thrive Agenda, to give all children the best start in life.
You will find that here at Gateshead we have a supportive culture with a united leadership team, and our children's services team is widely recognised and championed for the work it does - we also have national recognition from Community Care (opens new window) relating to our Social Work recruitment and retention. We have been able to invest in our team, making sure we focus on relational and restorative practice across the whole workforce and we have a 3 year strategy which underpins this, meaning that our vacancy rates are low compared with the national average. Through stable and united teams, we grow and develop, all the while enabling children and families to thrive. The investment also means that we have been able to expand our offering in children's homes and we continue to look at ways to innovate and improve; we are not complacent and know that there is always more to do.
This is a senior leadership role, reporting directly to me as Deputy Strategic Director, as a core, influential member of children's leadership team you will work closely with the Head of Safeguarding and our leadership team to lead, shape and influence outcomes for children and families.
To be successful in this role you will be equally ambitious and confident in social work practice, as a qualified social worker you will be familiar with best practice initiatives in service delivery, with significant experience of working with children and young people.
If you are interested in joining our team and are inspired to help lead the next phase of our journey, to help make Gateshead thrive, we look forward to receiving your application. In the meantime, following an initial conversation with our recruitment partners at The Resourcing Solution I would be delighted to discuss this opportunity with those who might wish to learn a little more.
In this role you really can be the difference to children and families in Gateshead!
Andrea Houlahan
Deputy Strategic Director for Children's Social Care and Early Help Services, Gateshead Council
