Senior Nurse Safeguarding Children

Overview County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust

Senior Nurse Safeguarding Children The closing date is 18 February 2026

An exciting opportunity has arisen to work as part of the Safeguarding Children Team at CDDFT. The team are well established, dynamic and innovative. This role is a Band 7 Senior Nurse within the organisation, who will work closely with staff, stakeholders and support teams to safeguard children and families.

The Senior Nurse Safeguarding will work closely with the Named Nurse & Named Midwife; the wider safeguarding teams & the senior leadership team, to support assurance that the organisation is meeting statutory safeguarding requirements. They will also ensure the achievement of key performance indicators for safeguarding across the organisation.

We are seeking to recruit a highly motivated practitioner, who is passionate about safeguarding, with a focus on providing leadership across the service pertaining to this specialised area. The successful candidate will demonstrate robust knowledge, skills and experience within safeguarding practice; they will be aware of the current safeguarding priorities across the service; including the importance of effective and collaborative working with internal stakeholders, multi-agency Partners and Designated Safeguarding Professionals.

In this role you will be working Trust-Wide.

Main duties of the job The successful candidate will demonstrate robust evidence-based knowledge of national and local procedures, guidance and key safeguarding children legislation. They will possess a keen desire to improve outcomes for vulnerable children and their families. They will have a wealth of experience in the field of safeguarding children, with a child-centred and family-focused approach; experience in teaching and the confidence to pursue positive outcomes, providing support and ensuring the progression of local improvement plans.

As a safeguarding specialist you will be a highly motivated practitioner, who is passionate about safeguarding children, with a drive and enthusiasm to implement change and educate staff.

You will be part of a dynamic team of specialists, who work across the trust to lead in the development and delivery of safeguarding children training programme. You will provide safeguarding children supervision, advice, guidance and support. You will support the Named Nurse Safeguarding Children, to drive forward the safeguarding children agenda and contribute to multi-agency safeguarding children activities, across local safeguarding partnerships.

About us Full Job Descriptions can be found in the adverts supporting documents.

We provide hospital services from two acute sites - Darlington Memorial Hospital and University Hospital of North Durham. We have a centre for planned care in Bishop Auckland and provide care from community hospitals in Chester-le-Street, Shotley Bridge, Barnard Castle, Sedgefield and Weardale as well as over 80 other community based settings and providing care in patients' homes.

We particularly welcome applications from disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates as BAME and disabled people are currently under-represented.

Over-reliance on AI-generated content is discouraged and may diminish the applicant's chances of success.

For the most up-to-date information on visa requirements and eligibility, please check online to determine whether you can apply.

From April 9th 2025 - Healthcare assistants - You must have been employed for a minimum of two years as a HCA within the NHS for the Trust to consider sponsorship (we will only consider sponsorship if you meet this criteria and have a current visa expiring within 3 months).

Job responsibilities Please see full Job Description attached.

This post is a specialist role, which is Trust-wide, and requires specialist knowledge regarding safeguarding children practice. The professional will work with a high degree of autonomy and lead the safeguarding agenda across the whole Trust, providing support, advice, guidance and supervision to staff, to empower them to safeguard children within their own practice. The Senior Nurse Safeguarding Children role provides support from a leadership and operational perspective to the Trust, ensuring that the statutory requirements for the organisation are upheld. It is crucial that the practitioner works with a Think Family and child-centred approach, with knowledge and understanding of the key and current evidence-base, the current local and national themes from learning, leading on the development and delivery of training, briefing sessions and innovative methods to embed learning. Quality assurance is integral to this role, to ensure ongoing improvement, which will be performed internally within the organisation and also often takes place collaboratively with the Safeguarding Partnerships.

It is essential that the post holder works in close collaboration with the Named Professionals for Safeguarding, the safeguarding children team and the wider teams within the Trust. The role also involves working closely with members of the multi-agency safeguarding partnership teams and key stakeholders across the locality, to meet local safeguarding priorities.

The Senior Nurse Safeguarding Children is a senior role within the organisation and therefore is responsible for supporting the embedding of safeguarding strategy, leading on the development of policies and contributing to wider clinical policies, where appropriate. The key role of the Senior Nurse Safeguarding Children is to support staff, equip them with the knowledge and skills, to empower them to independently safeguard children.

To work collaboratively, as an integral member of the safeguarding children team, to empower staff and equip them with the skills and knowledge to safeguard children. This is in line with their statutory responsibilities.

To work collaboratively with the wider safeguarding teams within the Trust and locally.

To provide highly specialised safeguarding advice, guidance and support on all aspects of safeguarding children to health staff within County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

To provide support around highly complex safeguarding situations, including, for example; perplexing presentations and fabricated and induced illness, child exploitation, neglect.

To work with the Named Nurse Safeguarding Children and Named Midwife Safeguarding, to ensure that robust procedures for Safeguarding Children are implemented.

Deliver a high quality of safeguarding training, education and development to staff members within the Trust and collaborating with the local Partners to provide multi-agency training, education and development.

To work with the Named Nurse Safeguarding Children & Named Midwife Safeguarding to develop the Safeguarding Children Training Strategy.

Demonstrate a specialised knowledge of cumulative harm within safeguarding practice, to inform critical analysis and evaluation.

Awareness of the escalation process, when disagreements occur within the organisation and also with partners, applying the appropriate tools and resources, to ensure a consistent, respectful and confident approach to professional disagreement/challenge; whilst advocating a child-focused and Think Family approach, which is trauma-informed.

To support County Durham and Darlington Foundations Trusts function in the delivery of MASH, MAPPA and MARAC, attending meetings and providing robust analysis and appropriate sharing of information, where appropriate.

Demonstrate the ability to recognise areas of risk, including within areas, which may impact on the safety of children/young people, service users and staff, who are accessing the organisation. Supporting in the development of robust risk management plans, to safeguard in this instance.

To ensure that Local Safeguarding Partnership Procedures; CDDFT NHS Safeguarding Children Procedures; current and new legislation; learning from incidents and Safeguarding Children Practice Reviews are embedded throughout all training methods and supervision.

To undertake the planning and development of training packages, which are evidence-based and correlate to current learning.

Person Specification Experience

• Relevant experience in health care provision, including significant experience working with children, young people and their families.
• Experience of working with families who have complex safeguarding needs.
• Experience in managing safeguarding processes, safeguarding case work, and contributing to multi-agency working to safeguarding children families
• Experience of teaching or training provision to a range of professional groups.
• Experience of effective multi-agency working; including forming and sustaining professional relationships, across a range of partnership agencies, working together to safeguard children.
• Experience of safeguarding supervision and evidence of reflective practice.
• Experience of safeguarding children policies and procedures.
• Experience of compiling reports, applying critical thinking and analytical skills, to identify and respond appropriately to risks and implement proportionate safeguarding actions.
• Experience of working with local safeguarding frameworks including Signs of Safety.
• Experience of attending and providing meaningful contribution to multi-agency safeguarding meetings.
• Experience of responding to complex contextual safeguarding issues.
• Experience of capturing and responding to the child's lived experience.
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