Social Worker-Tff

Brighter Futures for Children

Full-time, Permanent post
Salary: £44,648 - £49,418 pa (includes £8,000 Annual Market Supplement)

Welcome payment: £5000 (after successful 6-month probationary period)

Loyalty payments: £3000 at both 12 and 24 months

About us
Brighter Futures for Children is a not-for-profit company, owned by, but independent of, Reading Borough Council. Although we are independent, we are very much part of the Reading Family. Our people enjoy many of the same benefits as Council employees, including membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and continuous service.

We work closely with partners in the local community and key organisations including Reading Borough Council, policy, public health and voluntary groups. We are responsible for the delivery of children’s social care, early help & prevention, education services (including SEND). This also includes fostering and adoption, the Youth Offending Service and traded services with schools.

Our main aim is to protect and enhance the lives of the children of Reading. We help families find long-term solutions to ensure children lead happy, healthy and successful lives.

About the Team/role

We currently have vacancies for case-holding, experienced social workers. We believe that relationship-based social work makes a difference in children, young people and families’ lives and our generic teams focus on direct work with children, young people and families.
Our Together for Families (TfF) service is an exciting development for Brighter Futures for Children and has been introduced to allow children and families to benefit from the continuity of only one social worker. The benefit for social workers is lower caseloads and an environment that makes relationship-based social work flourish.

Our Together for Families teams work with children during S.17 (Children Act, 1989) single assessments, S.47 child protection investigations, as well as working with children subject to Child In Need Plans, Child Protection Plans, pre-proceedings, proceedings and those becoming looked after.

Support to families is also provided through our evidence-informed and timely programme of support delivered via family support workers and specialist adult practitioners in mental health and substance use. The aim is to ensure an effective trauma-informed ‘whole family’ response to needs and risk for children.
There are numerous opportunities for training and development at BFfC. We have secured excellent training for all our staff through Research in Practice and established a sound partnership with the NSPCC. We value our staff and want to support them in their progression with us.

For a limited time (until 31 March 2024) we are offering an additional welcome payment to eligible social workers joining one of our TfF teams and, from 1 April 2023, we are also offering loyalty payments at 12 and 24 months.

We are doing this to strengthen our teams and ensure children and young people get the continuity and stability they deserve. It’s testament to us, the way that we work and the supportive environment we encourage that our permanent social workers stay with us and some agency staff are converting, but we want more of our social workers to join us on a permanent basis.

Essential Qualification/Experience:

• Registered with Social Work England
• Experience in court work

Our offer

We offer a supportive environment to grow and develop your career with the opportunity to be creative and focus on innovative and ambitious interventions that lead to sustainable change for families. We are kind, friendly, collaborative and value driven.
We have high expectations for our children and young people and work in a relationship-based, child-centred manner to achieve the greatest impact in children’s lives.

A competitive salary, plus our loyalty scheme (until 31 March 2024), alongside a range of benefits including:

• Local Government Pension Scheme including generous employer contribution
• Relocation Reimbursement Scheme
• 26 days’ holiday plus public holidays (rising to 33 after 10 years’ service)
• Discounted Child Care (on site nursery)
• Cycle to work scheme
• Season train ticket loans
• A range of local discounts
• Salary sacrifice car lease scheme
• Free parking – Civic B & Broad Street mall (via permit) subject to availability

For more information and a confidential discussion about the role please contact us on recruitment@brighterfuturesforchildren.org

Closing date for applications is 28th March 2024
Interview Date – to be confirmed

We look forward to hearing from you!