Senior Social Worker, Adoption South East

Adoption South East is a regional adoption agency delivering adoption services on behalf of our four partner Local Authorities, East and West Sussex, Surrey and Brighton and Hove. We operate a hybrid model of working and have an office in Horsham, Brighton, Reigate and Eastbourne, and a central Hub in Lewes East Sussex. We are looking to recruit two part time Senior Social Workers to become part of our Keeping in Touch (KiT) team, supporting post-adoption contact and working hard to maintain meaningful connections for an adopted child? These are two new posts which are funded for two years.

We are a specialist team as part of ASE’s Adoption Support Hub who are responsible for supporting, facilitating and regularly reviewing an adopted child’s Keeping in Touch arrangements, to ensure they remain safe, manageable and are child focused. This may include Letterbox exchange (indirect), and/or Face-to-Face meetings (direct), depending on the child’s needs and circumstances. We also create opportunities for adoptive families to connect and build community through Playgroups and Events.

We are looking for candidates who:

• Have strong social work values, assessing, mediation and collaboration skills
• Have experience of working with adoption, permanence or complex family networks.
• Are able to manage a complex caseload, working closely with adoptive families, adopted young people and birth/first families to help navigate complex emotions and challenges, and ensure Keeping in Touch plans remain safe, flexible and child focused.
• Confident in supervising and supporting team members
• Promote peer support through community groups and events
• Organised and emotionally resilient
• Able to work collaboratively with a range of professionals and external agencies providing consultation, professional insight and guidance to promote child focused keeping in touch plans.
• Able to embed practice that reflects the evolving landscape to modernise post-adoption contact
• You must be able to travel across the Adoption South East region
• Are a qualified Social Worker with 3 years post qualifying experience, and is Social Work England registered

To apply for this role, please follow the ‘Apply Now’ button above and upload your CV and a Cover Letter. We will be using your Cover Letter to shortlist so please be sure to address how you meet all the criteria in the person specification, drawing on any relevant work/life experience, education, or personal interests.

Please download the Job Description and Person Specification for further details.

Interviews will be held in person at County Hall, Lewes on the 22nd July 2025.

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of an evolving service as we develop this area of work and a key area of responsibilities will be to work with our partner local authorities children’s teams and ASE’s children Hub to provide advise and guidance in respect of KiT arrangements.

We offer a diverse range of benefits to help and support you during your employment. More information can be found on our benefits page.

* Please note that thses salaries include a market supplement which has been agreed to the end of June 2026. You can view the basic salaries on our Pay and allowances page.

For an informal discussion about this opportunity contact Sacha Hebden, Team Manager or Jo Elsey, Service Manager
Email: sacha.hebden@eastsussex.gov.uk OR jo.elsey@eastsussex.gov.uk

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