Part time Social Worker – Fostering

Overview

Are you eager for a new challenge? Do you share our enthusiasm, commitment and determination for fostering? If so, this is the role for you!

We are looking for a part time (24 hours a week), permanent Social Worker to join our Fostering Support Team. Our aim in Fosting is to achieve stability for our children and young people, ensuring that they are supported to thrive in all areas of their lives, enjoy all aspects of family life and in doing so, achieving their full potential.

Along with our Foster Carers, we work hard to ensure that all of our children are in homes which meet their needs, reflects their right to safety and security, and encourage them to find their voice and use it as we support them towards independence, adoption or reunification home.

It is a fantastic time to join us at Cambridgeshire Fostering following a continued period of stability and growth. We pride ourselves on providing all workers in Fostering a friendly, safe, and supportive environment to work in. We are a learning organisation and are committed to practice education and developing staff through reflective practice and supervision.

This is a hybrid post with required days in the office and other days working from home. We are a county wide service and are keen to explore flexible working as needed.

We strongly believe in supporting all of our children to enjoy all aspects of family life and we are keen to hear from you if you share our ethos. For more information, contact the Fostering Team Managers Sharyl Acheampong or Mariepearl Camfield at Sharyl.Acheampong@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or Mariepearl.camfield@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or call Nathalie on 01480 377619.

Interviews will take place week commencing 13th October 2025.

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.

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 in maintaining your Continuous Professional Development
• A relocation package of up to £8,000 (eligibility applies)
• A pay progression scheme to enable you to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills
• A 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

For more information and to see our other benefits, take a look at the benefits brochure attached to this advert.

What will you be doing?

Day-to-day responsibilities of a Fostering Social Worker include:

• Providing ongoing support and supervision to Foster Carers and Fostering households, ensuring that the children in the home are seen regularly and their voices are captured in supervision visits.
• Supporting carers in developing their therapeutic care whilst supporting and challenging, as needed, their practice to ensure it is meeting the needs of all children.
• Maintaining personal compliance, ensuring Foster Carers Supervisions, Safer Caring plans, unannounced visits and fostering reviews are completed within timescales.
• Ensuring households are compliant in all areas of the fostering task and meeting the guidelines in line with the Fostering Services Regulations and National Minimum Standards.
• Providing written and verbal reports for a variety of settings, including Fostering Panels for Annual Reviews and Stability Meetings and Matching Reports that are concise, informative and based on analysis of evidence of the Carers skills and the Child/ren needs.
• Aiding in the recruitment of Foster Carers and promoting the Service through support with fostering events and the Duty line/Out of Hours telephone support.
• Working in a holistic manner with internal and external colleagues. Supporting with service development and addressing issues that impact upon carer retention or satisfaction.
• Engaging meaningfully with training and supervision for your ongoing development, skills and knowledge.

About you

You are a confident and dynamic individual who enjoys making a difference, is curious in your practice and enjoys building relationships with Carers and Children.

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

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to reflect this diversity, which we believe is beneficial for our employees, the organisation and the communities we serve.

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification.

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. 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 to 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 Employer. 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. Some examples of adjustments 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.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers