**INTERNAL APPLICATIONS ONLY** Placement Officer

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: SO1 £38,256 – £39,276

Retention Bonus: Social workers £3000

Contract Type: Part-time/Permanent

Working hours per week: 24 hours a week

Application Deadline: 17/05/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): End of May

Reference: 2041

About Us: Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work. We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents. London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace.

About the role: We are looking for a Placements Officer (24 hours/week) in our Childrens Access to resource team in a permanent role. The main responsibility of the position holder would be to identify placements and/or additional services which meet the needs of Looked After Children, Children in Need and Care Leavers. The position holder will be expected to collaborate with social workers, providers and other stakeholders to achieve service delivery of the highest quality, on time and at the right cost to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people.

Key Responsibilities:

• Search and identify suitable placements i.e. foster families, residential homes, semi-independent homes for children and young people in care of the Local Authority and independent homes/flats for care experienced young adults.
• Commission bespoke care packages to meet the needs of each child/young person and negotiate with providers to achieve best value for the commissioned services.
• Collaborate with internal and external agencies to monitor service delivery standards as required by the Terms & Conditions of the Contracts for all types of services (i.e. fostering, residential, semi-independent).
• Provide advice and guidance to colleagues to assist them to complete referral forms accurately by presenting the strengths of the children/young people as well as the risks to enable providers to do appropriate matching.
• Provide professional advice to social workers on service delivery expectations from providers to measure the outcomes achieved for each child/young person.
• Integrate the statutory framework on the placement search, commissioning and quality assurance procedures.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• Degree level qualification including Dip in social worker (Desirable) OR Relevant previous experience without a degree.
• Organisational skills, good knowledge of budget and expenditure recording.

Terms and conditions:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/or vulnerable adults;
• Satisfactory DBS check;
• Continued professional body registration if social worker;
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English.

How to Apply: Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role.

Equal Opportunity Employer: Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives:

• Promoting equality of opportunity
• Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage
• Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels.
• Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all.

Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council.

Contact Information: If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Swapnil.shrivastava@walthamforest.gov.uk Head Of Service. If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.