Lead Child Protection Practitioner

Job description

Contract Terms

Starting salary: PO6 (£56,058 – £59,298)
Work location: 48 Station Road, Wood Green 
Working Hours: Full Time, 36 per week
Contract type: Permanent 
Closing date: Sunday, 8th November 2026
Interviews: 18-20th November 2026

About Haringey

Haringey is a fantastic place to live and work – the world in one borough. A place brimming with creativity, personality, radicalism, and community. It is a place where we stand up for each other. A place that is proudly distinctive. We’ll be celebrating all this and more as the “rebel borough” when we are the 2027 London Borough of Culture.

Our history champions change-makers and everyday rebels; revelling in our differences, battling discrimination, championing equality, and doing things our own way. Haringey’s people are a huge asset, with knowledge, expertise, and passion. Our staff members embody our organisational values: Caring, Creative, Courageous, Collaborative and Community-focused. These values keep us looking forward, ambitious for the future, and continuously striving to do our very best for all of our residents.

About the Role

Haringey is building a Multi-Agency Child Protection Team, and we are looking for experienced child protection practitioners to lead it. As a Lead Child Protection Practitioner, you will make and guide the key decisions for children at risk of significant harm, working side by side with colleagues from police, health and education in the same team.

This is a rare chance to shape a new model at the start, not to inherit one. You will help us test, learn and improve as we grow the team across the borough.

What you will do:

• Lead strategy discussions, bringing partners together to agree whether a section 47 enquiry is needed and how it will be carried out.
• Oversee section 47 enquiries and make decisions with partner agencies about children who need protection.
• Chair initial and review child protection conferences, making sure plans are clear, specific and developed with families.
• Keep oversight of children in your cluster who are subject to child protection processes, including harm outside the home.
• Give consultation, guidance and constructive challenge to social workers, team managers and Family Help colleagues.
• Work closely with police, health and education colleagues in the team and with wider specialists, including domestic abuse, housing and CAMHS.
• Help us measure what difference the team makes, looking at the quality and timeliness of decisions, families’ experience and the impact for partners.
• Contribute to practice guidance, learning and induction as the model develops.

About the Team

The MACPT brings social work, police, health and education expertise together in one team, based at 48 Station Road. The team leads strategy discussions and section 47 enquiries, chairs child protection conferences and oversees child protection plans. MASH remains the front door for referrals. We are introducing the team in phases, one cluster at a time, and learning from each phase as we go.

About You

You will be an experienced child protection practitioner who is confident making difficult decisions, who can bring a room of professionals together and who treats families with respect.

Essential:

• A recognised social work qualification and current registration with Social Work England.
• Substantial post-qualifying experience in statutory child protection, including section 47 enquiries and child protection conferences.
• Experience of chairing or leading multi-agency meetings where complex safeguarding decisions are made.
• Sound knowledge of the Children Act 1989, Working Together to Safeguard Children and the London Child Protection Procedures.
• The ability to analyse risk, challenge respectfully and record clearly, and to explain decisions to families and partners.
• A commitment to working in partnership with families and to our Dignity for All approach.

Desirable:

• Experience as a child protection chair or advisor, independent reviewing officer, senior practitioner or team manager.
• Experience of Signs of Safety, or a real interest in working this way.
• Experience of extra-familial harm and contextual safeguarding.
• Experience of working in a co-located, multi-agency team.

Working for Haringey

At Haringey Council we are committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included, and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits of a diverse workforce so welcome applications from all ethnicities and communities so that we continue to make a difference to our residents and community.

Our benefits package includes a leave entitlement up to 31 days + bank holidays, potential hybrid working opportunities, health and wellbeing support, a generous local government pension scheme and a range of discount schemes across leisure and culture that provide both financial and money-saving discounts.

Please note: we reserve the right to end this advert before the noted deadline if we receive sufficient applications. If you wish to apply for this role please ensure that you do so as soon as possible.

Additionally, we are aware that automated emails may end be diverted through to junk email folders. Please continue to check these through the application process. If you have any questions about the status of you application please contact ResourcingHub@haringey.gov.uk