Children's Social Worker - Court Team

The job requirements are detailed below. Where applicable the skills, qualifications and memberships required for this job have also been included.

Job details

• Terms & Conditions: Permanent, 37 hours per week
• Department: Children’s Services & Education
• Interview date: 13th July 2026

Please note that as a small unitary authority we are unable to support employment visas.

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Children in Our Care Court Team on a full-time permanent basis. Social workers within our Children in Our Care Team are committed to supporting children and young people to achieve the best possible outcomes. The work is challenging but also very rewarding, and you will play an important role in deciding what happens in our children's futures.

As a Social Worker in the Children in Our Care Court Team, your role would include:

• Preparing high-quality court documentation, including Social Work Evidence Templates, parenting assessments, sibling assessments, and care plans, ensuring clear, analytical, and evidence-based reporting.
• Managing complex cases with confidence, including undertaking detailed risk assessments, reviewing care plans, and developing robust safety plans.
• Working towards achieving permanence for children through a range of pathways, including Special Guardianship Orders, adoption, kinship arrangements, and long-term fostering, alongside rehabilitation planning where appropriate.
• Undertaking child and family assessments, in partnership with the child, their parents or carers and other agencies, ensuring that the child and the child’s voice is central to the assessment, with appropriate consideration and analysis of risk.
• Producing an outcome-focused Care plan and/or Pathway Plan that will meet the needs of the child, safeguard the child, and promote permanence.
• Ensuring that the views of children and young people are captured and represented clearly and that they have the opportunity to participate in the co-production of their plans and assessments.
• Ensuring that children and young people are safeguarded and protected from harm, and positive outcomes are promoted through timely intervention.
• Being involved in permanency planning for children, ensuring their holistic needs are met in their long-term home.

Here at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, we are immensely proud of the team spirit engendered right across our service. We know that having supportive colleagues around you is what makes the difference – so we really want to encourage you to join us and become an essential part of our service. Improving outcomes for children will be what motivates you – it is what motivates us too!

To do this, we are committed to offering flexible working and ensuring you achieve a good work-life balance. We also offer supportive and directive management and a commitment to a manageable workload.

We asked our social workers why they like working for Blackburn with Darwen; the key themes were:

• It is a friendly place to work and all of the Children’s Services are situated within one building.
• The social work teams have priority parking outside of the building.
• We are keen to harness digitisation and have invested in technology for our social workers, to enable agile working and support innovative ways of undertaking direct work with children and families.
• You are valued, developed, supported, and given the opportunity to grow.

We offer a comprehensive and bespoke training and induction package, which includes our Systemic Social Work practice model and the assessment of risk, Risk of Sexual Harm/Capacity to Protect assessments, capacity to change, neglect, GCP2, and domestic abuse. We offer development days, workshops, one-to-one support sessions, and mentoring.

We have a well-established and supportive ASYE programme for newly qualified SWs, which includes protected caseloads and time, peer support sessions, and a dedicated mentor throughout your first year in practice. We commission CPD programmes delivered by UCLAN and Research in Practice.

As an enabler of change for children and families, there are a range of services available to enhance support to families. We are a unitary authority that is proud of its strong prevention offer, and there are a range of services that wrap around children and families. We have been fortunate to maintain all 8 of our children’s centres. We have an Adolescent support unit, a dedicated family group conferencing team, an in-house therapeutic team led by Clinical Psychologists, and family support services that provide intensive support including out-of-hours support.

We know you will understand why we want to make sure we get the right people with the right skills, attributes, and abilities to join our service. Our assessment process for prospective candidates is robust and our Children’s panel representatives play a key part in this.

We are based in Duke Street, which is a beautiful purpose-built building with open plan office space, flexible seating arrangements, modern kitchen facilities, and all the latest technology. There is also parking on site for a small contribution.

Your commitment to your own professional development will be paramount - you will have access to approachable and supportive management who are committed to your ongoing development as we are keen to ensure you continue to develop a wide range of social work practice skills. It goes without saying that you will be Social Work England registered and have a thorough knowledge and experience of legislation, statutory guidance, and regulations relating to children in need of support or protection. However, we also offer some positions for those who are in the process of completing their Social Work degree and are due to qualify in the next few months.

If you would like to have a chat with someone about the role please feel free to email sandra.jackson@blackburn.gov.uk who would be happy to answer any questions.