Hillingdon is London’s second largest borough located on the outskirts of the capital, sharing its boarders with Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hounslow, Ealing, and Harrow. Proud of its cultural diversity, Hillingdon is home to over 309,000 residents, of which 22% under 17 years old.
The borough has an extensive transport network, enabling a variety of options to travel by either car, bus, train, or tube. Surrounded by motorways (M40, M25, M4), main roads (A4, A40, A312 and A404), and complimented with several underground lines (Metropolitan, Piccadilly, Central, and Elizabeth) commuting in and out of Hillingdon is made simple and enjoyable.
A great place to live, study, work, and visit, Hillingdon has the highest number of Green Flag award-winning parks and open spaces, as well as key landmarks like the picturesque Ruislip Lido; the historic Battle of Britain Bunker, Polish Air Force Memorial; RAF Northolt airfield; and the renowned Brunel University London.
Boasting a strong reputation for attracting major investment, the borough continuously works in collaboration with developers and businesses to improve its high streets, build new homes, and create jobs – boosting the local economy.
Hillingdon’s council-wide strategy highlights our pledge of ‘putting residents first’, delivering; safer communities, a thriving local economy, and a greener more sustainable environment, while increasing our digital capabilities throughout the borough.
We’re proud of who we are, our diversity, our cultures, and the remarkable professional and personal experiences of our people. We want you to be a real part of the change we’re making at Hillingdon, and we’re keen to attract people who share our vision, values, and ambitions.
Promoting inclusivity and encouraging direct communication, we acknowledge that everyone has an important contribution to make in improving the way we work to deliver services that transform the lives of children and families. Supported with a comprehensive induction, you’ll join a team where your voice, thoughts, and opinions will always be listened to, working in collaboration to achieve the best outcomes for our children, families, and colleagues – which will always be our number one priority!
Hillingdon’s Chief Executive (previously the Director of Children’s Services) has a great level of experience and understanding of the current and future challenges in the provision of Children’s Services, and together with our current DCS (Julie Kelly), and Senior Leadership Team, we’re committed to prioritising our children, young people, families, vulnerable adults, and older people to live healthy, active, and independent lives.
Through our relationship-based practices we recognise the need to address key challenges together. Taking pride in ensuring a co-production approach, we engage service users, colleagues, and partners, to foster a culture of continuous improvement, empowerment, independence, and early intervention. Continuous improvement isn’t just a buzz word for us, it cements our commitment to always seek new opportunities to evolve, learn, innovate, and adapt to what our communities need.
We believe our children and their families are our expert partners, and we value their experiences, thoughts, and opinions, creating working groups to explore, discuss and identify solutions to some of the key challenges.
Some of the positive outcomes from these working groups include:
We’ve taken a fresh approach to actively involve children and young people in the recruitment (from ASYE to Senior Management) and development of the service has not only provided them with an insight into the way we work, and also gives us first-hand feedback on the service they would expect to receive. This is incredibly important and reflects our commitment of promoting the independence and voice of our children and young people.
Parents, carers, and guardians have told us that sometimes they require more support at weekends and evening. As a result, we’ve moved away from an Emergency Duty Team model, and now offer a Stronger Families Out of Hours Service, specialising in child protection and family support and ensures that Social Workers and experts are available for support around the clock providing a more comprehensive level of support at the time when families require that support.
Our young people told us that they want to be in control to who they are working with. As a result, we are no longer allocating Social Workers, but we let the young people choose they Social Workers themselves.
Other strategic improvements we’ve made to our service provision include:
Moving away from ‘early help’ to ‘help’ when and where needed. This is delivered through our Stronger Family Programme that promotes early identification of need and promotes wrap around support in the communities before the needs of the families reach a level where statutory intervention is required.
We opened our first multi-agency Family Hub that co-locates services for children and families such as children’s contact, the YJS service, the Multi Agency Psychology Service and Children’s Centre services and a range of health services from antenatal care for mothers to sexual health for adolescents.
Our AXIS team has evolved as a sophisticated tool and service that helps to identify and ensure that the right service provision is available for our vulnerable adolescents. The intelligence captured by axis from young people and professionals alike allow us to identify and focus our detached units and interventions to the areas that need them more.
We’ve established an award-winning team focussed on Supporting adolescents at risk of Contextual Safeguarding. Covering intense intervention and relationship-based practices with adolescents who are at the highest risk of harm.
On joining our Children’s Social Care team, you’ll be welcomed and made to feel ‘at home’, benefitting from the right tools, skills, and resources. From day one you’ll meet with colleagues across the council who will provide expert guidance and support to succeed and develop your career at Hillingdon - giving you that ‘Hillingdon feeling’.
We consider the team as not just your immediate colleagues and managers, but everyone from the Chief Executive and Directors to all our colleagues who make Hillingdon a great place to work.
Our commitment to continuous improvement is also reflected in our dedication to lead, coach, and invest into our people. Whether you’re just about to embark on a career within social care, or aspire to progress into senior roles, we offer clear development pathways to help you achieve your career ambitions.
With access to a wide range of training and learning opportunities (PAMs, AIMs, CGP2, etc.), every day is a ‘learning day’. Partnering with local Universities to offer the ‘Practice Educators programme’ we’re keen to not only enhance the quality of our social care provision, but also supercharge your career!
In addition to a comprehensive career development plan, we offer a range of benefits which include:
Local government average salary pension scheme
From 26 to 34 days annual leave (rising to 37, dependant on length of service)
Free on-site parking when working at our civic centre offices
A 36 hour working week (for full time employees) promoting a healthy work-life balance
Career breaks
Hybrid working and flexible working hours
Season ticket loan
Access to a credit union
Access to a wide range of trainings, courses, and other types of professional development
Discount on a variety of adult education courses run by the council
Payment of professional fees where these are required
Discounts at council-owned leisure centres and swimming pools at Hillingdon (Uxbridge), Queensmead (South Ruislip), Highgrove (Ruislip) and Botwell Green (Hayes)
Cycle purchase scheme
Car sharing scheme
30% discount on green fees at council-owned golf courses
Click here to find out more about the amazing Social Care roles we have available. Alternatively if you’d like to arrange a call with one of our managers send us an email to recruitment@hillingdon.gov.uk, highlighting your name, contact details, and area of interest – and we’ll connect you to the right team!