Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough, we have award-winning parks, open spaces, and listed heritage sites.

Our Children’s Services team is committed to supporting young people, ensuring their safety, and creating opportunities for them to thrive. We are currently seeking a Designated Social Care Officer to lead SEND initiatives and strengthen partnerships across social care, health, and education.

Are you a skilled social worker passionate about supporting children with SEND? Bexley Council is looking for an experienced Designated Social Care Officer to integrate SEND practices into social care, helping to improve outcomes for young people with SEND and ensuring the Council meets statutory SEND requirements.

Based in a well-established quality assurance and professional standards team you will be working alongside other professionals with a focus on strengthening  where you can expect team support and joint work with other key professionals across the partnership.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic SEND Implementation: Develop and oversee SEND action plans within social care, working across multi-agency networks for an integrated approach.
• Mentorship & Training: Act as a mentor, supporting colleagues’ development and facilitating training.
• Safeguarding & Compliance: Ensure the wellbeing of children in residential care, ensuring alignment with legislation under the Children Act and SEND Code of Practice.
• Innovative Service Delivery: Build and lead a network of SEND champions to support ongoing improvements.

For more details on the role, please refer to the attached Job Description.

To be successful, candidates will need:

• A Degree in Social Work and registration with Social Work England
• Proven experience in SEND legislation, systemic practice, and collaborative service delivery
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to lead in complex, multi-agency settings
• A proactive, solution-oriented approach to problem-solving

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role, please refer to the attached Person Specification within the Job Description.

This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Use the ‘Apply for vacancy’ button.

Please note that the system has a one-hour time limit. We would advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised and have your CV and/or Supporting statement ready to upload.

If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence.

As a Disability Confident Employer, Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. For reasonable adjustments in the recruitment process, please contact recruitment@bexley.gov.uk.

Additional Information

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.