Practice Development Lead

Salary: PO5: £54,360 rising in annual increments £57,495 pa incl. LW

Contract: Permanent / Full Time

Working style: Hybrid Working

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Lambeth Social Care Academy due to the promotion of the current post holder. We are seeking an experienced and passionate Practice Development Lead to join our ambitious and forward thinking team.

As a Practice Development Lead, you will be a key member of the Lambeth Social Care Academy, working closely with the Principal Social Worker, Service Managers, Advanced Practitioners and frontline teams to drive practice improvement across Children's Social Care.

You will play a central role in embedding Lambeth's Signs of Safety practice model, ensuring that practitioners are supported, challenged, and developed to deliver relationship based, strengths focused practice that keeps children safe and achieves lasting change for families.

The role combines practice leadership, quality assurance, workforce development, coaching, and organisational learning. You will act as an agent of change, championing best practice and supporting services to achieve and sustain high standards through reflective learning, audit activity, supervision, consultation and training.

Working collaboratively with operational services and partner agencies, you will identify strengths, analyse themes and trends and help translate learning into meaningful improvements that enhance outcomes for children and young people.

• Strong and credible frontline social work experience with a track record of excellent practice.
• A passion for practice development, learning and supporting others to grow.
• Experience of coaching, mentoring, supervising or developing social workers, including students, ASYEs and experienced practitioners.
• A sound understanding of Signs of Safety and the ability to support practitioners to use the model confidently in their work with children and families.
• Experience of quality assurance activity, including auditing, case consultation, reflective learning and practice improvement.
• The ability to analyse complex information, identify themes and learning, and influence change at both practitioner and service level.
• Excellent communication, relationship building, and facilitation skills.

Lambeth is committed to creating a learning culture where practitioners are supported to do their best work with children and families. The Social Care Academy is at the heart of this ambition, providing innovative learning opportunities, professional development pathways and practice leadership across the directorate.

You will be joining a dynamic, creative, and highly regarded team that values curiosity, collaboration, reflective practice and continuous improvement. Together, we are working to ensure that every child receives the right help at the right time and that our workforce feels confident, supported and empowered to make a difference.

Please note that you must be registered with Social Work England at the time of application.

At Lambeth, we are dedicated to providing quality services and equal opportunities for all. We are committed to safer recruitment and are proud to be a Stonewall diversity champion, a Living Wage Employer, and to guarantee interviews for all disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria of the role.