Social Worker - Link Family Worker, North Essex

We are recruiting for an experienced Social Worker (Link Family Worker) to join our high-performing Family Solutions team in Tendring. This is a fantastic opportunity to work within a service described by Ofsted as "exceptional", delivering early help to families facing multiple and complex challenges. Family Solutions is part of Essex's Children & Families service, providing intensive early help to families experiencing a range of complex and interconnected challenges. The service works holistically with families, focusing on building resilience, strengthening relationships, and enabling sustainable, long-term change.

You'll be joining a skilled, multi-disciplinary team that includes professionals from a range of backgrounds, all working collaboratively to achieve the best possible outcomes for children and families. The team has strong links with statutory children's services and partner agencies, ensuring a joined‑up approach to safeguarding and support.

At Family Solutions, there is a strong emphasis on professional development, reflective practice, and innovation, with regular supervision and opportunities to contribute to service development – including ongoing integration with Children's Social Care as part of the Family First Partnership Programme.

The Opportunity

As a Social Worker (Link Family Worker), you'll play a key role in supporting both families and colleagues, bringing social work expertise into a dynamic early help environment. Your responsibilities include:

• Managing a caseload, including assessing safeguarding risks and supporting threshold decisions alongside managers and practice supervisors.
• Acting as a source of professional advice within the team, including joint working on complex cases such as concerns around neglect.
• Building strong, trusting relationships with families to enable meaningful and sustained change.
• Working collaboratively with statutory children's services and partner agencies to ensure coordinated support.
• Facilitating family meetings, coordinating services, and providing both emotional and practical support in homes and community settings.

Accountabilities

• Support manager and practice supervisor to undertake screenings of new contacts, understanding threshold.
• Determine directions and actions required to progress cases day‑to‑day; recognise when key decisions regarding risks/concerns need to be referred to the Team Manager or Practice Supervisor.
• Act as a source of advice, guidance and support to colleagues in relation to complex cases that would benefit from social work expertise, mentoring and guiding others in best practice.
• Undertake holistic assessments of family needs to create intervention plans and identify how outcomes can be achieved that fully reflect the family and young person's views and aspirations, delivering interventions including group work programmes that support families to make change.
• Facilitate complex family meetings, managing competing views of families and professionals to find achievable solutions.
• Undertake individual and group programmes of work to enable children and families to develop skills to resolve issues and problems themselves; provide information and accompany families to help access other local services.
• Provide specific practical, personal and emotional support to families in their homes or other settings as part of an agreed plan to achieve agreed and sustainable family outcomes.
• Actively participate in regular supervision to review work and ensure effective interventions for families.
• Ensure effective practice principles are embedded in service delivery; work collaboratively with staff and partners to ensure effective risk management in line with the thresholds of the Effective Support and Guidance document, ensuring the Family Solutions team understands and follows the SET child protection procedures.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Qualified Social Worker, registered with Social Work England, and post‑ASYE.
• Recent experience in frontline children's services, experience completing assessment and managing CIN and/or CP cases.
• Willing to work towards Practice Educator Qualification.
• Strong commitment to uphold the standards and values of the social work profession.
• Evidence of continuing professional development with good knowledge in the relevant professional area and commitment to evidence‑based practice.
• Significant practical experience working with families with multiple and complex needs.
• Effective communication, problem‑solving and assessment skills; a demonstrable track record of building and sustaining positive professional relationships with individuals and families with multiple and complex needs.
• Experience applying a solution‑focused approach and providing practical advice and support to families to enable them to achieve positive and sustainable outcomes.
• Ability to work in partnership with others to maximise outcomes for families in line with Family Solutions operating principles.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team; use supervision appropriately.

The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wider operational area, traveling around the county of Essex and beyond, transporting service users and their belongings and to be able to do so in an emergency. A driving licence and car, or the ability to meet mobility requirements of the role through other means, is essential.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We are committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the role. We also interview all veterans and care leavers who meet the minimum requirements. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expect all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

As part of employment with Essex County Council, if your role requires a DBS check, you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for maintaining it.