General Overview: Duty and assessment team is the frontline, single point of contact for all incoming safeguarding concerns relating to young people within the catchment area. Reports will initially come into the MASH service, and then be passed on to DAAT.
This sector consists of 6 teams of approximately 8-10 staff each, with every team consisting of a Team Manager, Advanced Practitioner, Social Workers, Newly Qualified Social Workers, and Family Support Workers. As far as service expectations go, CIN cases are expected to be visited within 5 days, whereas CP cases are expected to be visited within 24 hours, or same day if possible, and the service moves at pace to ensure every child is seen promptly. DAAT is a countywide service, covering all areas of Northamptonshire. This may sound daunting to potential candidates, however the team hopes to support candidates long term to have their 'allocated area' to work in, meaning they will only cover cases within a given geographical area (e.g. - Daventry/Northampton Central/Corby)
Working Arrangements: The team operates on a 6-week duty cycle, with candidates needing to be in office for a FULL week during their duty week, and to be local during visit time. Team Feel: DAAT at NCT is a stable service, with top level management being predominantly perm, and the locum TMs that currently reside, have both been in the service 2+ years, meaning all managers are 'time served' members of the team, and able to offer enhanced support.
Caseloads are capped off at 35, with cases currently sitting at around 25-30. Workloads are rearranged when needed to compensate, and it is worth noting that a lot of families will have higher number of children, so a social worker may only be working with around 5 families at a time. DAAT can offer training to locums via overspill from perm training allocations and will book candidates to training based on time served at the authority.
If you are interested in this role please send your updated CV in the first instance.
