Duty Senior Practitioner

The Role

Do you see yourself making a real difference in the lives of people with learning disabilities?

Can you lead and support a high-performing social work duty team with confidence and compassion?

If yes, we have the perfect role for you!

Our All Age Disability and Learning Disability Service is looking for a passionate and dedicated Duty Senior Practitioner to join our team and help improve outcomes for our diverse communities.

About the Role:

This is an exciting opportunity to lead and manage the integrated duty team within Southwark’s All Age Disability and Learning Disability Service.

You will provide daily oversight of duty work, including incoming safeguarding referrals, urgent placements, unallocated cases, and short-term interventions. You will supervise a small team of social workers and an assistant practitioner, ensuring that all incoming work is triaged, managed effectively and progressed in a timely, person-centred way.

You’ll play a key role in shaping a responsive, high-quality front-door service for adults and young people with learning disabilities and/or other disabilities.

About You:

We are looking for a committed and confident social work leader who brings a mix of frontline experience, professional judgement, and the ability to motivate others.

You will be:

• A qualified social worker, registered with Social Work England
• Experienced in managing or supervising staff within a social care setting
• Confident in triaging complex cases and overseeing safeguarding and urgent interventions
• Skilled in strength-based assessment, outcome-focused planning, and statutory decision-making
• A clear communicator, strong team player, and effective problem-solver

• Experienced in using data, performance information, and audit tools to drive improvement
• Capable of quality-assuring practice and leading service developments
• Committed to anti-discriminatory practice and continuous improvement

About the Team:

Our All Age Disability (0–25) and Learning Disability (25+) Service provides a seamless care pathway for children, young people and adults with learning disabilities and other disabilities.

The adult duty function plays a central role in the team — acting as the first point of contact for adults, coordinating initial responses, and ensuring cases are appropriately assessed, allocated and progressed.

We are a values-led, inclusive and supportive team, committed to professional development, reflective supervision and co-production with service users and carers.

We also work closely with colleagues across health, education and other council departments, offering a collaborative and multi-agency approach to improving lives.

For detailed qualifications and requirements, please review the job description and person specification located at the bottom of the advert.

Contact Information:

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Jack Bagnall at [email protected].

Additional Information:

This post requires a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) DBS check at Enhanced level.

Benefits and more information:

In your role, we want you to feel supported, challenged and rewarded. You will benefit from our family-friendly policies including flexible working, home working, and a local government pension scheme, plus many other staff benefits. You will join a motivated, driven and supportive team that strives for excellence and values its members. You will also be part of a successful and high-achieving development team that is making a real difference to the lives of residents in the borough. For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Staff Benefits page.

Recruitment timetable

Advert close date: 11:59pm on 17 th November 2025

Shortlisting date/s: w/c 17 th November 2025

Interview date/s: 24 th November 2025

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received. We strongly advise you to complete your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme:

As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role, and identify with one of the below criteria:

• Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
• Are currently in care, or have previously been in care
• If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition

We are an organisation who is passionate about our people and understands that richness of diversity is a requirement to provide the best possible services to our communities. This is demonstrated through our council-wide ambitious commitment to tackle racial inequality in our communities and workforce through our Southwark Stands Together programme . We particularly welcome applications from members of the Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to increase representation at senior management level in the Council.