Disabled Children Practitioner, Permanent in Golden Valley

This is a Gloucestershire County Council job.

We are currently recruiting for 2 permanent Practitioners to join our dedicated Disabled Children's Service.

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 (pro rata for part-time staff)
• option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year (pro rata for part-time staff)
• 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.

The Disabled Children's Service supports children and young people who are aged 0-18 years old with significant needs arising from their disability. The team aims to ensure that disabled children and their families have access to needs-led services that promote resilience, co-production and improve outcomes. To do this, the team will work with partners to make sure that every child has an accurate assessment of need; with a plan that sets out how support will be delivered, with the aim to improve outcomes.

Working as a Children's Practitioner is an exciting, interesting, and rewarding role. Your aim will be to deliver targeted support to vulnerable children and their families to achieve better outcomes and reduce the need for higher level support and long-term demand for services. You will undertake early help assessments and co-ordinate and implement short break support packages using a systemic approach. By building supportive and empowering relationships with children and young people, parents, and carers through creative and innovative strategies, in line with partner agencies and organisations. You will benefit from our commitment to delivering the best possible service to children and families, and the chance to join an experienced and dynamic team. You will be joining an authority with a strong set of values that underpins the work we do: Accountability, Empowerment, Excellence, Integrity and Respect.

As well as your experience, there are some things we require of you to be successfully appointed to this post:

• a full driving licence and willingness to drive
• DBS clearance (Enhanced Adults and Children’s)

For an informal chat about this role, please contact. 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 at Shire Hall on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th May.

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, 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.

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.