Children's Social Worker - Assessment Team in Ely

We are looking for passionate and enthusiastic Social Workers who have the child's voice at the heart of everything they do to join us in our Assessment Team! Our Assessment Teams are lively and fast‑paced, and we are committed to ensuring that children, young people, and families in our community receive a positive and timely service. The work is rich, varied and allows for a high level of multi‑agency working, often to tight timelines. The nature of our work means that you see positive outcomes quickly.

We are proud to have created a space for our social care colleagues to reflect as a team, and we conduct monthly individual supervisions. We recognise that the job can bring challenges and offer holistic support. You will have the opportunity to be creative with care planning and to have your ideas and voice heard.

Our team is supported by Children’s Information and Advice Officers (CIAOs), which makes administrative tasks more manageable. You will also be supported by a permanent Team Manager who provides consistent and reliable senior leadership.

We support our colleagues in career progression through a comprehensive Learning and Development team that offers bespoke training. This is supported by the Cambridgeshire Academy for Reaching Excellence (CARE), which nurtures and develops social care skills. The new Social Care Academy aims to improve outcomes for children and young people through training for social work students, apprentices, international practitioners, experienced social workers and those in leadership positions.

We have vacancies currently in our East team based at Noble House in Ely and our South Cambridgeshire team based at Fawcett House in Cambridge. However, please note that as part of the Council’s ongoing Asset Review, the Fawcett House office base may change during 2026 and teams currently located at Fawcett House may be relocated to an alternative site within the County, in most cases remaining in close proximity to the current location.

For more information, call Nathalie on 01223 475920 or email joinus@cambridgeshire.gov.uk. This is a rolling campaign and we check applications daily. We will close the advert once the positions are filled, so don’t wait to apply!

In Children’s Services we are working to reshape what we do and how we do it. Why not be part of it? Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Our benefits

• We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage.
• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family.
• 6 days of protected time each year to support maintaining your Continuous Professional Development.
• A relocation package (eligibility applies).
• A pay progression scheme to enable you to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills.
• Scalable retention payments of up to £8,392 over a 3‑year period, starting after your first full year of employment.
• Refer a Friend Scheme where if you refer another Social Worker to us who is subsequently employed by us as a result of that introduction, we’ll pay you an introduction fee of £350.
• Access to our Cambridgeshire Academy for Reaching Excellence (CARE) who will support your development, enabling you to become the best practitioner you can be.

What will you be doing?

Day‑to‑day responsibilities of a Social Worker in Assessment include:

• Act as the lead professional and ensure all matters in respect of safeguarding are dealt with promptly, effectively and in line with child protection procedures, escalating where necessary.
• Undertake assessments to identify and respond to needs, building on strength and ensuring that analysis is robust and leads to clear outcomes that can be met through SMART targets.
• Engage with children, young people, and their families to develop effective and empowering relationships which facilitate change and improve outcomes.
• Produce reports and plans for a variety of forums, including court, which are child focused and reflect their experience.

About you

We’re looking for confident and dynamic individuals who enjoy making a difference in their local community, are curious and spot things that others might not see, enjoy building relationships and like to explore possibilities.

You must:

• Be a qualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration.
• Have the ability to work from a variety of locations and travel countywide independently.

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification. Please note we are not accepting applications from candidates living overseas who require sponsorship to move to the UK.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do. We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network ‘IDEAL’ and self‑organised peer support groups help us foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.