Social Worker – Adoption & Special Guardianship Support

About the role

Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council are delighted to share that we have an opportunity for a dynamic and creative Social Worker to join us in the Adoption & Special Guardianship Support team of the Regional Adoption Agency. 

As part of the government changes to improve the adoption process they have asked local authorities and Voluntary Adoption Agencies working in the same areas to join together to form Regional Adoption Agencies (RAA). The Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) which is a joint venture between Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, brings together the very best talent, experience and energy to increase the number of adopters across the county and give children loving & stable families.

This is a rare and exciting chance to join the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Team where you would join a therapeutic team offering support services to children and families impacted by their journey to a safe permanent home.

The team models are routed in developmental trauma and attachment and we work with a range of stakeholders to provide a child-centred comprehensive approach. Core services of the team include parenting support, family work, individual work with children, advice and guidance, birth records counselling, intermediary services, counselling for birth relatives, life story work, letterbox and contact. 

If this sounds like a role that suits your skill set, we would love to hear from you! For more information, please contact Kelly Johnson at Kelly.johnson@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Interviews will be held virtually via Microsoft Teams w/c 15th July

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

What will you be doing?

The Social Worker role would include:

• undertaking initial and complex assessments
• duty worker role around offering consultations to families and professionals regarding families needs, completing needs-based assessments and signposting to other services where appropriate
• effectively delivering/managing interventions for children and families, some of which will be commissioned and Adoption Support Fund (ASF) funded with a focus would be towards supporting the development of strong, healthy, safe and attuned attachment relationships.
• working with colleagues most notably in children’s services, education and CAMHS to best support families.

About you

We're looking for confident and dynamic individuals who enjoy making a difference in their local community, are curious and spot things that others might not see, enjoys building relationships and likes to explore possibilities.

You must:

• Be a qualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration
• Have the ability to work from a variety of locations and travel countywide independently

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification.

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:

• Flexible and creative working arrangements
• Flexible Bank Holidays
• A comprehensive wellbeing package
• Our Cambs Rewards employee discounts
• A comprehensive pension scheme
• IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• CamWeb - our staff intranet helping keep you informed
• An employee recognition scheme
• We offer a generous mileage allowance

For our Social Workers, we offer more specific benefits like:

• Generous annual leave provision (28 days, plus bank holidays)
• A supportive management team that will champion your learning and development
• Employee Assistance Programme – access to free support 24 hours a day
• Plus, 6 days of protected time each year to enable our Social Workers to maintain their Continuous Professional Development. 

Please read our benefits brochure attached for more information.

About us

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off.   We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered.  We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion. 

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers

Attached documents

• CSC Social Worker (4).pdf
• CSW Benefits Brochure 2024 (10).pdf