Committed to keeping children in Buckinghamshire safe.

My name is Amanda. I am Head of First Response in Children’s Social Care.

Joining Buckinghamshire Council three years ago was an easy decision for me. I was inspired by the strong leadership and shared values, coupled with the fact that Children’s Social Care works closely with Education, which enables strong communication and smooth decision making.

In my role, I’m responsible for the MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) team, Family Group Conferencing, Missing & Exploitation Hub and our Out of Hours Emergency Service. Together, we help make decisions around what needs to happen to a child in need, to ensure they are safe and will meet their developmental milestones for the rest of their life. As a service, we are committed to ensuring a positive journey for all children in Buckinghamshire.

It goes without saying that COVID-19 had a massive impact on our services — we experienced an increased volume in cases, greater demand and a higher severity of cases, something which unfortunately became a national situation.

At the beginning of lockdown last year, we carried out visits virtually, but once PPE had been mobilised for our Social Workers, we were able to continue with meetings face-to-face for families who were not shielding.

We have a fantastic, strong team who we are all are immensely proud of. Our Social Workers responded to unprecedented changes in a controlled and managed way, and we achieved so much throughout the past couple of years!

Throughout the pandemic, our staff worked flexibly to suit their lifestyle and they have been further supported by PAM Assist to ensure their own emotional well-being and mental health is looked after.

Although recent events have been challenging, during this time we’ve had an opportunity to review ways in which we can improve the service creatively. I would encourage anyone to join Buckinghamshire Council because we have a strong alliance with partner agencies, and a supportive Leadership team who are dedicated to keeping children safe. Join us to be part of our journey!

Visit https://jobs.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/ and search ‘children’s social work’ to find available roles.