Family Support Worker, Permanent in Cowley

This is a Gloucestershire County Council job.

Job Location: Stroud, Cotswolds, Gloucester, Tewkesbury & the Forest of Dean

Salary: 33,143 - 36,363 per annum

Hours per Week: 37.00

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 17/05/2026

This post is open to job share.

Make a real difference to children and families. We have an exciting opportunity for you to join Families First as we expand our Family Support Worker workforce across Gloucestershire. This is an important time for the service as we prepare to implement the Department for Education's Families First Partnership Programme (FFPP) reforms, shaping how early help and social care work together to better support families.

These roles will be at the forefront of key changes in the services as we move to implement our new Family Help teams by October 2026. This means that these roles will develop to take on the statutory responsibilities and job title of the Family Help Lead Practitioner working across targeted early help and child in need later this year. This is key to reducing unnecessary changes of lead practitioner and providing continuity of support for families. If successful, you will be supported through a package of workforce development and training to build your expertise and skills. We match families to practitioner experience.

We are recruiting permanent Family Support Workers to work across the following districts:

• Tewkesbury
• Cotswolds
• Gloucester
• Stroud
• Forest of Dean

Please indicate your preferred location(s) in your application.

Reward and Support: For all your hard work, you will receive the following:

• Between 33,143 - 36,363 per annum subject to experience
• Flexible and agile working opportunities
• 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service
• Option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year
• Family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
• Supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone
• An in-house Occupational Health service
• Employee discount scheme
• Links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
• Career development and qualification opportunities
• Access to our Social Work Academy
• Cycle to Work scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)
• Green Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)

Right child, right support, right time, every time. In our recent inspection in June 2025, our Children's Services have been officially judged as Good with Outstanding elements. Ofsted also said Leaders have set out a clear vision for delivering success for children, by modelling values and creating a culture where the workforce, children and families feel valued and heard; risk is managed confidently with bottom lines clearly set out. This marks an important step in our journey to improve outcomes for our children and young people, and we remain focused on our mission: to continue building on this success and ensure that every child and young person in our county has the opportunity to thrive.

Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Social Work Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award-winning workforce. We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to be part of an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.

About the role: As a Family Support Worker, you will play a vital role in supporting children, young people and their families, helping them build resilience and achieve positive, sustained change. Key aspects of the role include:

• Delivering targeted early help interventions to vulnerable children and families
• Undertaking assessments and contributing to multi-agency plans
• Coordinating and delivering support using a solution-focused and strengths-based approach
• Building trusted, empowering relationships with families and supporting parents through creative and engaging practice
• Working collaboratively with a wide range of partner agencies and services

As a result of the FFPP reforms, this role will offer the opportunity to work more seamlessly across thresholds, helping reduce unnecessary changes of lead practitioner and providing continuity of support for families as we adopt the recommendation relating to Family Help structures across the county.

What we offer: The opportunity to be part of significant national reform and service development, a supportive, experienced and values-led workforce, practice underpinned by Systemic Practice and a commitment to learning and development, meaningful work that helps prevent escalation to higher-level services, flexible working arrangements where service needs allow.

You will be joining an authority that is committed to delivering the best possible outcomes for children and families, recognising the importance of reflective practice, collaboration, and professional curiosity.

About you: We are looking for motivated and compassionate practitioners who:

• Have experience working with children, young people and families in support or intervention-focused roles
• Are confident completing assessments and plans alongside multi-agency partnerships
• Can build positive, respectful relationships with families facing challenges
• Are flexible in your approach and able to work evenings and weekends when required
• Hold a full driving licence and have access to a car

How to apply: For an informal chat about this role, please contact and they will put you in touch with the suitable hiring manager. We reserve the right to close an advertisement earlier than the stated closing date if we receive a suitable number of applications. Interviews are due to take place in person on 26th May, 27th May, 28th May, and 1st June 2026.

If you would like to find out more about our Children's Service please take a look here: Children's Social Care Careers | Gloucestershire County Council.

The council is not currently able to offer sponsorship in this role. Candidates will need to have the right to work that enables them to commit to at least 6 months employment. Right to work is not transferable from a sponsored role held with another employer.

If you are an Internal applicant and consider yourself to have a disability as per the Equality Act (2010), please declare this in an email to, as this is NOT currently covered in the application due to a technical error. By providing this information, you can choose to be considered for a guaranteed interview under our Disability Confident pledge if you meet all essential shortlisting criteria. It also enables the recruiting manager to arrange any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.

Under the terms of our Safer Recruitment Policy, if you are invited to interview, we will take up safeguarding references prior to your interview to understand your suitability to work with vulnerable children. These references will then be discussed in your interview. Please give details of at least two referees, one of whom must be your present and/or last employer and the other from a previous employer(s). These will need to cover the last three years of employment/education. In the case of applicants leaving full-time education or not having worked since doing so, the Head of School, College or University should be one of the named referees. We do not accept references from friends or family members or workplace colleagues (who are not more senior). To ensure we process your application in a speedy and efficient way, we will contact your referees by DocuSign. Where appropriate, please inform them of your application.

Additional Information: To access the Job Profile for this role, please follow the link below: Family Support Worker (Families First Role Profile). This position is subject to a DBS check. Gloucestershire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people or vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire's diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential. It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a customer-facing role must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English. Hybrid working arrangements are available for the majority of our roles, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice, with a mix of both remote and office working.