Social Worker - Adoption Focus

Cheshire West and Chester Council is a place where everyone can Thrive – through our core values of Teamwork, Honesty, Respect, Innovation, Value for Money and Empowerment.

The Permanence Teams based in Ellesmere Port and Winsford deliver care, support, permanence planning and all statutory functions for Looked After Children. Each team has one Adoption Social Worker who holds responsibility for any child with a permanence plan of adoption. The Permanence teams are responsible for the progression and implementation of children’s permanence plans, from the point a Care Order is made. The Hub is a borough wide service across Cheshire West and Chester, as part of this role you will be required to travel both outside the borough and between Chester, Winsford, and Ellesmere Port districts.

As part of the role you will work with children where adoption has been endorsed as their final care plan, holding full responsibility as their allocated Social Worker whilst also acting as a Family Finder in order to progress a care plan of adoption. You will work alongside Social Workers in the Child Protection/Court Teams, and following the making of any Placement Order resume responsibility for those children. You will be expected to deliver a high quality adoption service to our children, including profiling, selection and progression to matching children with prospective adopters. You will hold responsibility for all ‘matching’ procedures and transitions plans, before progressing to an Adoption Order application. You will also be a key attendee at ADM meetings where plans for adoption are being considered.

Our Children's Social Care workforce is passionate and committed to improving outcomes for children by providing a consistent, high-quality service to children and families, together with excellent working relationships with our partners and the support from a stable leadership and management team. We are committed to a culture of shared learning and development in which you will have an active part to play in the continued progress of our services to children and families.

We have developed and embedded ‘Our Way of Working’ with our multi-agency partners to ensure improved collaboration and one common approach to our work with families using Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Informed Practice. You will be supported and encouraged to work creatively in planning and decision-making with children and their families and our partner agencies to achieve positive outcomes and with a focus on prevention at every level.

Our Social Workers will tell you: - They feel supported and part of a team. They have access to excellent training opportunities. Managers at Cheshire West and Chester strive to make Social Workers feel valued and recognised, they are approachable, available and compassionate. Social Workers are encouraged and supported to be creative and strive for excellence. They feel valued and supported by their team, manager, and the senior managers.

Our commitment and investment in professional development means that most of our Senior Practice Leads, Team Managers and some Senior Managers have progressed within our own organisation.

As a local authority, we continue to develop and enhance our social work offer to support and develop our valued workforce. We will offer you: -

• excellent work-life balance, flexible and remote working arrangements. We took the positives we learned from ‘lockdown’ and kept them
• bright, modern, and recently refurbished office environments
• high quality progression and developmental opportunities
• competitive working rewards
• up to 16 days ‘flexi time’ per year as well as your annual leave
• high quality supervision
• strong reflective practice framework
• free parking at all our office locations
• we’ll pay your Social Work England registration
• excellent training opportunities
• re-location allowance in some circumstances
• competitive salary

As employers, we recognise that Cheshire West and Chester Council has a major role to play in improving the quality of life of its employees. We are committed to agile flexible and mobile working and helping employees to maintain an effective balance between their work and home life. The COVID lockdown has meant we have been able to improve our ability to work away from an office, to be more flexible and creative in the use of our time and maximising the use of technology, whilst at the same time ensuring we can come together as teams and with our support networks on a regular basis. We have developed a ‘new normal’ and this ‘hybrid’ arrangement allows for us to be more flexible in how we provide services to children and families and an enhanced work/life balance to our Social Workers.

We have a strong and supportive political and senior leadership team with a wealth of experience and knowledge about children’s outcomes across the borough of Cheshire West and Chester.

If you would like to discuss the opportunities available, please contact Sarah Archibald sarah.archibald@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk

Please note that this job is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

To find out more information about what it is like to work for Cheshire West and Chester Council including our rewards and benefits please see www.cwcrecruitment.co.uk

No candidate will meet every single requirement - if your experience looks a little different from what we've identified and you think you can bring value to the role, we'd love to learn more about you!

Cheshire West and Chester Council are committed to equality and diversity in employment. Please see the Equality Policy for more information.

Cheshire West and Chester Council have adopted a Local Living Wage for our employees which means that all employees will receive a minimum of £10.90 per hour for all contracted hours.

For any technical enquiries please email Sourcingteam@ecwip.co.uk and quote job reference number in all correspondence.