Team Leader - Fostering Support - Portsmouth

We are seeking an experienced and motivated Fostering Support Team Leader to provide day‑to‑day leadership of our Fostering Support Team. You will lead a team of Supervising Social Workers and support staff, ensuring the delivery of a high‑quality, child‑centred fostering support service. The role has a strong focus on supporting foster carers, promoting placement stability and ensuring practice meets statutory duties, fostering regulations and the National Minimum Standards. Working closely with colleagues across Kinship, Adoption, Fostering Recruitment, Home Finding and Commissioning, you will play a key role in the delivery and continuous improvement of fostering services for children we care for.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide leadership, management and reflective supervision to the Fostering Support Team
• Promote a learning culture, staff wellbeing and high professional standards
• Ensure foster carers receive effective supervision, support and access to training
• Oversee assessments, annual reviews and preparation of high‑quality reports for Fostering Panel
• Monitor performance, quality and compliance, using data to drive improvement
• Lead quality assurance activity, learning from audits, feedback and complaints
• Ensure robust safeguarding and proportionate responses to allegations or concerns
• Work collaboratively with internal teams and external partners to improve outcomes
• Manage delegated resources responsibly and contribute to value for money
• Model inclusive, ethical and strengths‑based leadership behaviour

The ideal candidate

You will be a credible and inspirational social work leader with a strong understanding of fostering support and supervision, and their impact on children’s safety, wellbeing and permanence. You will be motivated, curious and solution‑focused, with a clear commitment to improving outcomes for children and supporting foster carers.

Essential requirements

• A recognised Social Work qualification (DipSW, Degree or MSc)
• Registration with Social Work England
• Substantial post‑qualifying experience in children’s social care, including fostering and children we care for
• Experience of leading practice and providing high‑quality supervision
• Strong knowledge of fostering legislation, regulations and National Minimum Standards
• Experience of quality assurance, audit and performance management
• Ability to manage competing demands and make sound, risk‑based decisions
• Excellent communication, organisational and analytical skills
• Strong written and IT skills

Please ensure that you read the full job profile attached for the details and expectations of this role, paying particular attention to the section 'Who is the person' as you will need to refer to this when completing your Personal statement.

Working Arrangements:

You will be required to work 3-5 days in the office each week.

Contact for informal discussion or questions about the role:

Please email Mark Jowett.

About Portsmouth City Council

Portsmouth City Council is a unique organisation, committed to making a difference, and is guided by core values that set who we are as people, what we stand for, and how we act. We are committed to our values of respect, integrity, collaboration, inclusivity and being people-focussed. These values set out how we can contribute to the success of the council and our own success as individuals.

Application process

We anonymise applications during application & shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. As part of your application, we ask that you complete a personal statement, this statement is crucial and is where you must demonstrate how you meet the requirements of the job against each of the points described in the 'Who is the Person' points on the Job Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience.

We are a disability confident employer and Armed Forces Covenant gold standard. More information can be found at Equality, diversity and inclusion - Careers portal. We are committed to offering an interview to all those candidates that qualify under our corporate commitments and meet the minimum criteria, however, for roles that receive a large number of applications, we will select the candidates that best meet the minimum criteria.

You will need to demonstrate that you have the Right to Work in the UK. No post will be offered without it. Please note: We are not able to offer sponsorship for this position.

Safeguarding

Portsmouth City Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and young people, and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Every post is subject to PCC and Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Partnership safer recruitment procedures. Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) at Standard/Enhanced level will be required prior to any offer of employment and this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Please read the relevant DBS privacy notice before submitting any information. You will need to explain any gaps in your career history within the last 5 years - this is essential for all safeguarding roles.