Safeguarding Specialist Advisor

Job overview
Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust are committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults. We concentrate on improving people's lives while protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect. We make sure we share concerns quickly and appropriately.
The post-holder will have a significant role in promoting safeguarding within our settings, including a think family approach, early help and prevention, whilst advocating for the voice and experience of children who's welfare is paramount, and listening to adults to ensure our response is person centred and safe.
The post holder will be supporting and responding to a range of safeguarding enquiries from the whole work force including children and adult directorates, community & acute services, forensic and specialist, and all support services including volunteers within the trust.
We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.

Main duties of the job
The post-holders will have a strong advisory and signposting function, and will follow the systems and processes in place to effectively and expediently manage concern, referrals and individual cases.
The post holder will be required to liaise with operational services to reduce risk and concerns around safeguarding. Complete fact finding, such as via Independent Management Reports for Child Rapid Reviews, Safeguarding Adult Reviews and Domestic Homicide Review etc with robust analysis. Advise on the management, waiting list and discharge plans for complex safeguarding cases to prevent omission, manage risk and support multi agency collaboration. Attend child and adult practice reviews and learning events, enabling learning to be taken forward in practice. Follow up on referral pathways, including case escalation in support of teams and practitioners.
The post-holders will deliver a significant amount of safeguarding training from a variety of safeguarding topics in a variety of formats, i.e. face to face, teams, planned, large sessions and bitesize to meet the needs of the work force.
The post holder will provide reflective safeguarding supervision and debrief, to optimise staff support and practice development.

Working for our organisation
We are the Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway. Our teams support adults with a wide range of mental health needs. Because we cover the whole county and both hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the 1.8 million people of Kent and Medway. Rated 'Good' by the CQC, we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 in the community each year.
Our vision is simple: We are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It's why we're passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. And everything we do is guided by our values caring, inclusive, curious and confident.
Join us - if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's doing well together.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description for the full details on the responsibilities and person specification
The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010).

Person specification

Essential

Essential criteria

• Professional Qualification with active registration Nursing, AHP, Social Worker
• Safeguarding Experience
• 3 years post registration experience

Desirable criteria

• Safeguarding Team experience
• Training delivery experience
• mental health services experience
• Mental Capacity Act Experience

Degree

Essential criteria

• Degree in health or social care.

Important Information:
In cases where we receive a high volume of applications for a post, it may be necessary to bring the closing date forward. Please submit your completed application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
Due to the high volume of applications received, it is not possible to respond individually to your application. Should you not hear from us within six weeks of the vacancy closing, please assume that your application has not been successful.

Probation Period. New employees external to the trust are subject to a six-month probationary period.
To deliver an effective service it is essential in some of our roles that you are able to travel between work bases in a timely manner.
Production of false or forged documents/qualifications in order to obtain employment is a criminal offence and will be reported to the Police.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check.
Certain roles are subject to criminal record checks called Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks. Therefore, you will be required to submit a completed Disclosure form to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust are signed up to NHS England's Sexual Safety in Health Care Organisational Charter
The trust takes a systematic zero-tolerance approach to tackle any unwanted, inappropriate and/or harmful sexual behaviours within the workplace and in our care provision. We are committed to sexual safety which encompasses prevention, support and decisive action against perpetrators. We are committed to keeping you and our patients safe.

Use of AI when writing job applications
While AI tools can be helpful in generating ideas and drafting initial versions, they should never be the sole source for writing your job application.
AI cannot truly understand the specific job you're applying for or what makes you a good fit. Therefore, it's crucial to personalise any AI-generated content to accurately reflect your skills, experiences, and aspirations.
Relying solely on AI to write your application may result in generic, impersonal, and potentially inaccurate content. Always review and refine any AI-generated text to ensure it effectively communicates your experience, skills, accomplishments, and aspirations, and demonstrates your suitability for the position.