Children's Social Worker - Fostering Team (Connected Care)

How you'll make a difference

Our Social Workers make a real difference. Every day they work with families to help children and young people who have had a difficult start in life to achieve their ambitions. You will be listening to young people and putting them at the heart of all that we do and working in partnership with families, equipping them with the skills they need to ensure young people live in happy, healthy and safe homes.

What will you be doing?

We have a strong culture of giving staff the time, freedom and support to explore new and better ways of doing things, so we're looking for individuals keen to use their creativity to deliver high quality, child-centred practices, which ensure the best outcomes for children and families.

As a Fostering Social Worker, you'll be:

• Providing professional supervision and developmental support, including advice and guidance to fostering families, Connected Carers or SGO carers, and working with other professionals where appropriate.
• Completing mainstream fostering assessments or Connected Care/SGO assessments, making appropriate recommendations, with a view to ensure outcome focused achievements for children, young people and families.
• Supporting fostering families to look after children and young people who have experienced trauma and ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to enable them to undertake this complex task within a family home environment.
• Undertaking fostering reviews, providing high quality, analytical reports and presenting to Panel where appropriate, ensuring that children are receiving the best service possible.

This role resides in the Connected CareFostering Team, however as part of the wider Fostering Service, you may be required to complete additional duties within this service where required, or to gain additional training, skills and knowledge.

What we need from you

• A qualified Social Worker with relevant registration to practice and a good understanding of asset and strengths based approaches to social work
• A problem solver, confident about making important decisions, underpinned by a genuine passion to work collaboratively with children, young people and families to meet their goals and aspirations
• Innovation, positivity and dedication. You'll welcome challenge and embrace change.

Please note that due to the nature of this role it is a requirement of employment that an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is obtained for this post.

You will be required to travel widely to a range of locations within the Authority so you must have a current driving licence and access to a suitable vehicle insured for business use.

How a career at South Gloucestershire Council is different

We invest in the careers of our people and we are recognised for the quality, breadth and depth of our training and development offer, which helps our people make the greatest long-term difference in their work.

A career at South Gloucestershire is an opportunity for you to progress when you are ready.

Any post can become any Social Worker grade, be it at initial recruitment or through internal progression, our grades and salaries are:

• Social Worker GBP33,945 - GBP36,648
• Advanced Social Worker GBP38,223 - GBP41,418
• Senior Social Worker GBP42,403 - GBP45,441

We have a fluid career progression programme and structure, what does this mean for you?

• You no longer need to wait for a vacancy to gain promotion.
• Apply for progression assessment when you are ready, no restrictions on application windows.
• Earn a higher income for your recognised experience.
• Gain promotion without needing to change teams, managers or employer - fast track your potential.
• Senior roles leading to both managerial or practice specialist careers.
• Gain experience in other teams with secondment opportunities encouraged.

These posts attract a gross lump sum GBP3,000 'recruitment payment' pro rata offered to enable Social Workers who have already successfully completed their ASYE to join our permanent workforce. This is payable upon successful completion of your probationary period (after approximately 3-6 months) and is subject to eligibility criteria.

These posts are currently eligible for a market factor GBP3,000 'retention payment' pro rata, payable in November annually to those with two years' service with the council in Integrated Children's Services In an eligible post, inclusive of any ASYE period.

We also provide up to GBP8,000 relocation package, flexible working and a suite of employee benefits including a generous annual leave entitlement, pension and Social Work England registration fees reimbursement.

We know our team work best when they have balance in their lives and we offer genuine flexibility to help them achieve that work/life balance.

We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.

More information about our wider Children's Service can be found at

We're making a difference, be part of it!