Children's Social Worker / Senior Social Worker - 0-18 Children with Disabilities Team
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 a significant disability or impairment and have difficulty achieving their ambitions.- Listening to children and young people with a disability and putting them at the heart of all that we do.
- Working in partnership with families, equipping them with the skills they need to ensure young people live in happy, healthy and safe homes.
- Working within a multi-agency network to ensure that assessment and planning is well coordinated and leads to positive outcomes for the child.
We are pleased to say that we provide an Ofsted rated 'Good' service, our Ofsted report can be viewed here; we are seeking additional driven professionals to help us to collectively maintain and build on this for the ongoing betterment of the children and young people of South Gloucestershire.
Although this post is advertised as a full time position, we encourage and welcome applications from experienced social workers who may be seeking part time, job share or flexible working arrangements.
What you will 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.The 0-18 Children with Disabilities social care team within the 0-25 service has several functions, one of which is to provide information, advice and support to children, young people, their families and carers to enable children with disabilities to enjoy and achieve social inclusion. The team has a duty to safeguard vulnerable children and young people and to assess need, develop plans and provide services where appropriate. We will then review these plans regularly to ensure that outcomes are being achieved.
- The 0-18 Children with Disabilities social care team undertakes statutory social work in the areas of Child protection, Children in Need and the initial stages of Looked after Children, as well as working within the Public Law outline and Care proceedings on occasion. You will ensure vulnerable children and young people with a significant impairment or disability are identified, protected and supported to achieve positive outcomes through the provision of well planned, integrated and coordinated services.
What we need from you:
- You will have experience of court work, as candidates will need, or be willing to develop experience and skills to assess a persons capacity and authorise any deprivation of liberty before the courts
- You will be a qualified social worker with relevant Social Work England registration to practice and a good understanding of asset and strengths based approaches to social work.
- You will evidence that you are 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.
- You will be an advocate for innovation, positivity and dedication. You’ll welcome challenge and embrace change.
- You will demonstrate specialist knowledge of the relevant services, including latest service developments, legislation, regulations and codes of practice.
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 car.
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.
“Staff are overwhelmingly positive about working for South Gloucestershire Council. Staff report feeling heard and responded to by senior leaders. Reduced workloads, increased stability of managers and more business support have strengthened their ability to respond to and improve the quality of practice for children.A wealth of concentrated training, including the Programme for Change initiative, has developed skill sets and expertise of staff. Staff benefit from a clear pathway of career progression, including a bespoke managers development programme..” [Ofsted Report published July 2024]
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 current grades and salaries are:
- Social Worker £35,235 - £37,938
- Advanced Social Worker £39,513 - £42,708
- Senior Social Worker £43,693 - £46,731
- 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 £3,000 ‘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 £3,000 ‘retention payment’ pro rata, payable in November annually to those with two years’ service with the council in Children’s Social Care In an eligible post, inclusive of any ASYE period.
We also provide up to £8,000 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.
We’re making a difference, be part of it!
Click the link for the full job description Consolidated Role Profiles - Childrens Social Work (14)