Advanced Practitioner - Social Worker - Safeguarding (Adults) in Taunton

Transform lives, champion rights & support adults to achieve their full potential.

Location: Can be based in Yeovil or Taunton offices but role is countywide

Starting salary £41,771 rising annually, currently up to £46,142

Full time, 37 hours per week

Ideal opportunity for an experienced practitioner looking for their next step

30 days annual leave entitlement

Role Purpose: “Our goal is to empower and work with people to enable them to live gloriously ordinary lives where they are free from abuse and neglect. By providing the right support and resources, we can make a significant difference in the lives of those we serve. It is our responsibility to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to live a fulfilling and independent life.”

If you're passionate about making a change and advocating for others, then you'll fit right into the council's Safeguarding team. As an Advanced Practitioner Social Worker you will provide professional leadership within the Safeguarding Adults service, ensuring high-quality social work practice across Adult Social Care.

You will:

• Lead safeguarding practice across the service, ensuring a strong focus on rights, outcomes and independence
• Support adults to remain safe whilst maintaining choice, dignity and autonomy
• Deliver services grounded in Care Act principles, promoting wellbeing and reducing long-term dependency
• Work across systems to ensure joined-up responses with health, partners and communities
• Provide expert guidance and oversight on complex safeguarding and risk situations

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide professional leadership and advanced practice within the Safeguarding team
• Take a lead role in complex safeguarding cases, including Section 42 enquiries and high-risk situations
• Support and develop Social Workers through reflective supervision, mentoring and case discussion
• Promote best practice in Mental Capacity Act, Court of Protection and legal frameworks
• Lead and coordinate safeguarding responses, ensuring timely and proportionate interventions
• Analyse complex information and support evidence-based decision making
• Work collaboratively with internal and external partners to improve safeguarding outcomes
• Contribute to quality assurance, audits and continuous service improvement
• Support the Service Manager with performance, development of staff and service delivery

What We’re Looking For – Essential Skills/Experience:

• Qualified Social Worker with current registration with Social Work England
• Extensive post-qualifying experience within Adult Social Care
• Strong knowledge of safeguarding, the Care Act 2014, Mental Capacity Act 2005 and relevant legislation
• Experience of leading complex casework and supporting practitioners
• Ability to provide professional challenge, guidance and leadership
• Strong analytical skills, professional judgement and decision-making ability
• Excellent communication and partnership working across multi-agency settings

Advanced Practitioners must confidently lead decision-making, model best practice, and develop and grow the practice of others. The ideal candidate will share our values of respect, social justice, compassion, and empowerment.

About the Team/Service:

You’ll join a Safeguarding Adults service that is evolving and ambitious. Safeguarding in Somerset is led by social work expertise, not tick‑box processes. The Safeguarding Adults Board is independently chaired by Professor Michael Preston‑Shoot, reflecting a strong focus on learning, reflection and system improvement. This is a service where practitioners are developed, not just managed, and where professional curiosity is encouraged.

Additional Information:

• Hybrid working approach, with a balance of office and home working
• Opportunity to lead, influence and shape safeguarding practice
• Strong emphasis on learning, development and reflective supervision
• Supportive leadership and clear progression pathways

Please Note: We may consider offering Skilled Worker visa sponsorship to suitably qualified overseas social workers who are already residing in the UK. To be eligible, applicants must hold a recognised social work qualification and be registered with Social Work England. Sponsorship will be assessed as part of the recruitment process. This is only available to candidates currently living in the UK, as unfortunately we are unable to provide resettlement support.

Due to the nature of the role and the geographical area of the service across Somerset, which is a largely rural county, with limitations around public transport the ability to be able to travel to any location is essential. Therefore, applicants must have full access to a vehicle that can be used for work purposes. We recognise and welcome applications from disabled individuals who may require reasonable adjustments to meet this requirement, and we’re happy to discuss this from the first point of contact with the recruitment team.

Person Specification:

• Current and valid registration with Social Work England.
• Evidence of Continued Professional Development.
• Holding or working towards Post Qualifying Professional Standard
• Extensive knowledge of social work practice, with an emphasis on risk management, with adults of any age who have physical, sensory, learning disability, dementia, or other long-term conditions
• Extensive experience in supporting staff with complex casework, including chairing relevant meetings, following agreed procedures, and resulting in robust action plans with defined timescales.
• Good understanding of the practical application of all relevant Social Care legislation and proven track record of supporting staff with statutory requirements.
• Understanding of system thinking, used to reduce demand and costs.
• Experience of operating within a budgetary framework and an understanding of the relationship between this and managing demand.
• Model and promote confident and critical application of professional ethics to decision-making, using a legal and human rights framework, and support others to do so.
• Model and promote a culture which encourages reflection on the influence and impact of own values on professional practice.
• Demonstrate confident leadership, management and arbitration of ethical dilemmas, providing guidance and opportunities for the professional development of others.
• Promote people’s rights to autonomy and self-determination, supporting, challenging and guiding others as appropriate.
• Provide critical reflection, challenge and evidence-informed decision-making in complex situations.
• Routinely provide professional social work opinion, based on clear rationale and advanced professional knowledge.
• Demonstrate knowledge of appropriate legal and policy frameworks, case law and the application to social work practice.
• Seek appropriate legal advice and apply legal reasoning, using professional expertise.
• Demonstrate and apply to practice a working knowledge of human growth and development throughout the life span recognising the impact of relationships, psychological, socio-economic, environmental and physiological factors on people’s lives, taking into account age and development, and how this informs practice.
• Work autonomously and as part of a team, understanding and appropriately developing the scope of professional practice to create new ways of working for the benefit of those who access services, their families, and their carers.
• Recognise how systemic approaches can be used to understand the person in the environment and inform practice.
• Exercise professional judgement to manage risk, including positive risk-taking, especially in complex and unpredictable situations, and support others to do so.
• Demonstrate a critical knowledge of the range of theories and models of intervention for individuals, families, children, groups and communities.
• Awareness of changing contexts at local, national and organisational level and the implications for practice.
• Promote, articulate and support a positive social work identity, promoting strategies for collaboration and a supportive team culture.
• Anticipate and begin to contribute to change management in the social work context.
• Demonstrate personal and professional resilience showing confidence about your role in the team, work positively with others and contribute to team working by developing a learning environment for self, teams and colleagues.
• Able to demonstrate awareness of own professional limitations, personal values and knowledge gaps, to critically reflect on the influence and impact on professional practice and engage in regular supervision to improve practice and career development.
• Advocate for, and facilitate the creation of, a culture in which everyone is encouraged to reflect and learn (including from mistakes), to receive and give constructive feedback and to learn from and with each other.