Job Description

Lead Child Protection Practitioner (Job Ref:4179)

Starting salary: £ 50,537
Job Level: Level 4 Zone 2
Work Location: 5 Pancras Square
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: 7 x Permanent
Closing date: Thursday 4th June 2026 at 23:55
Interview Date: TBC

Alternative flexible working options available / open to discussion

Anonymised Application – in keeping with Camden’s commitment to inclusion the recruitment to this role is anonymised and supports the objective of reducing the impact of unconscious bias.

About us

Camden is listening to everyone, including you.

We’re giving a platform to people inside and outside our community. Because, we’re not just home to the UK’s fast-growing economy. We’re home to the most important conversations happening today. And we’re making radical social change a reality, so that nobody gets left behind. Here’s where you can help decide a better future for us all

The role

• By providing expert statutory safeguarding leadership, the Lead Child Protection Practitioner plays a critical role in ensuring that children at risk of significant harm are identified, protected, and supported through robust, timely, and child-centred decision-making. This non-caseholding role strengthens practice across Family Help, MASH, and the wider multi-agency system by chairing key safeguarding forums, exercising statutory authority, and embedding consistently high standards of child protection practice.

What You’ll Be Doing / How You’ll Be Involved

• You will have at least 3 years’ post qualifying experience, operating with delegated statutory authority under the Children Act 1989 and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 The role includes chairing and leading Strategy Discussions, Section 47 enquiries, and Child Protection Conferences, ensuring that decisions are evidence-based, proportionate, timely, and firmly rooted in the lived experience of the child.
• Working closely with Family Help teams, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), and partner agencies, you will provide expert consultation, advice, and professional challenge on complex safeguarding concerns, including intra-familial and extra-familial harm. You will support consistent application of thresholds, robust analysis of risk, and defensible decision-making across the system.
• You will offer expert guidance in relation to multi-agency safeguarding processes, ensuring that statutory responsibilities are discharged effectively and that agencies remain focused on the child’s safety, wellbeing, and outcomes. You will contribute to learning, quality assurance, and workforce development, using themes from safeguarding activity to strengthen practice and inform service improvement.

About You

• You are passionate about safeguarding children and supporting professionals to make confident, lawful, and ethical decisions. You understand the complexity of harm, including neglect, abuse, exploitation, and extra-familial risk, and you bring a nuanced, evidence-informed approach to risk analysis and planning.
• You are confident working across organisational boundaries, influencing practice without line management responsibility, and supporting a culture of learning, reflection, and accountability.
• You model professional integrity, inclusive practice, and resilience, and are able to hold difficult conversations in a way that promotes improvement and keeps children safe.

Qualifications

• Social Work qualification (degree or equivalent)
• Registered with Social Work England
• Evidence of post-qualifying development in child protection or safeguarding

Experience

• At least three years’ post-qualifying experience in statutory child protection
• Chairing Strategy Discussions, Section 47 enquiries, and Child Protection Conferences
• Acting as a safeguarding expert on complex cases
• Working closely with MASH and multi-agency safeguarding arrangements
• Providing professional consultation, advice, and challenge to practitioners
• Contributing to quality assurance, audit, and learning activity

To view the Job Profile, please click HERE

Working for Camden

We’re ready to welcome your ideas, your views, and your rebellious spirit. Help us redefine how we’re supporting people, and we’ll redefine what a career can be.

At Camden, you’ll receive a host of benefits as well as joining a flexible working employer. Visit 'www.camdenjobs.co.uk/staff-benefits'to see full details of our benefits.

Additional information
To apply for this job please follow the "Apply" link. In the ‘Why you?’ section of the application you will be required to demonstrate how you meet the role criteria noted in the Job Profile under the “About You” section.

Inclusion and Diversity

We want Camden Council to be a great place to work and to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce. A vital part of this is ensuring we are a truly inclusive organisation that encourages diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and those of Other Ethnicities, LGBT+, disabled and neurodiverse communities to make a real difference to our residents so that equalities and justice remains at the heart of everything we do.

To discover more about Camden and our commitment towards diversity, equality and safeguarding, please visit 'www.camdenjobs.co.uk/staff-benefits'.

Asking for Adjustments

Camden is committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and as accessible as possible for everyone. This includes making adjustments or changes for disabled people, neurodiverse people or people with long-term health conditions. If you would like us to do anything differently during the application, interview or assessment process, including providing information in an alternative format, please contact us on 020 7974 6655, at resourcing@camden.gov.uk or post to 5 Pancras Square, London, N1C 4AG