Safeguarding Officer

Oldham College is a great career choice for ambitious professionals. With a “good” Ofsted rating, a Silver “TEF” assessment for our higher education provision, one of the best apprenticeship programmes in the region, excellent 16-18 results and truly outstanding GCSE English results, we are already a high performer. 

But we want to deliver much more than this. Our ambition is to be “The Best Place to Learn and Work” and we have a clear Strategic Plan which sets out what this means and what we will do to deliver it. We will keep on improving and innovating, and we are investing in new provision, new facilities and new technology. 

We expect a lot from you, so we want ambitious, open minded candidates, who are ready to give their best.  But we give a lot in return, from training to pensions, our own benefits package, and one of the best and most helpful group of colleagues you could ever wish to meet. That’s true, by the way – ask almost anyone who has been here. Or come and see for yourself. 

If you want to be outstanding, and want to help us achieve the same thing, then please apply.

We are looking for:

• Safeguarding Officer
• Full Time
• Salary £24,253 - £25,857

This is a very important role

Alun Francis, our Principal, says, “This is a very important appointment, Safeguarding is central to our plans for the future, and we are looking for high calibre candidates.  We want people who love their professional area, are committed to keeping up to date, but also want the professional challenge of developing their practice.  We are investing in the facilities, employer relationships and the skills and knowledge of our staff.  We are looking for people who will respond to this, love the learners and enjoy the challenges and benefits of working at Oldham College”.

Rebecca Hirst, our Designated Safeguarding Lead, says “Here at Oldham College we believe all students deserve a rewarding educational experience that can create opportunities, change lives and lead to an exciting future. We are passionate about ensuring each student feels safe so that they can achieve their full potential. Our excellent team of safeguarding and welfare officers is ready to expand and add another skilled safeguarding practitioner to our growing team to continuously promote our safeguarding and prevent agenda, have a whole college approach to emotional and mental wellbeing and to become a Trauma informed organisation.”

Oldham College is a medium sized general further education college, with a turnover of almost £25m. It has one main campus in the centre of town, and this in the third phases of a £40m redevelopment which began in 2012.   Higher education is taught on a second, dedicated campus, a short walk away.   The College delivers a full range of work related education and training, including 16-18 programmes of study, T levels, apprenticeships, adult learning and higher education.  It has over 5000 full-time students and 600 undergraduates.   

The College is in the top quartile for 16-18 programmes of study and English GCSE re-sits, and in apprenticeship provision, but is the second highest performing provider Greater Manchester. The quality of its higher education provision is better than many established universities. 

Joining our Journey:

When you join our college, our colleagues have access to numerous benefits and facilities:  

• Generous Pension Scheme  
• Fantastic Staff Benefits and Rewards platform
• Very generous holiday entitlement
• Employee Assistance Scheme
• Enhanced Maternity/Paternity provision
• Staff Development days/week (Jan, July, Aug)
• Free confidential counselling service
• Staff recognition awards
• Subsidised car parking
• On-site Day Nursery
• On-site hair and beauty salon and The Grange Theatre both offering staff discounts

The Role:

We are seeking a highly skilled safeguarding practitioner with at least two years safeguarding experience to join our Safeguarding & Welfare team, the team are responsible for ensuring effective safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all students. Our purpose is to create an environment where students feel safe and can achieve their full potential.

The successful candidate will be able:

• To support in the day to day operational safeguarding provision for the college
• To effectively advise, coach and influence safeguarding referrals at all levels for students that attend the college
• To ensure all staff know how to raise safeguarding concerns and understand the symptoms of abuse & neglect
• To safeguard, support and implement effective individual action plans for students that have Complex Safeguarding concerns including Forced Marriage, So-Called Honour Based Violence, Domestic Violence, Peer on Peer abuse and Youth Violence,
• To represent the college and participate in appropriate external networking meetings and training sessions including strategy discussions and multi-agency meetings
• To contribute to the continuous development of college systems to improve their effectiveness and efficiency to ensure effective safeguarding
• To build and develop contact and working relationships with multi-agency teams across the Borough and wider networks.

Further details including a Person Specification are included within the attached Job Description.

The role will require you to embed and work to the college’s values; working with Integrity, having Ambition to help our learners succeed and being Inclusive to learners and colleagues alike.

To apply for this vacancy please email an up to date CV and covering letter to recruitment@oldham.ac.uk before the closing date of Midday Monday 28^th September 2020.

To apply for this role, please follow the link.