Social Worker - Children in Care

Permanent, Full Time, Community-based worker

Salary - £36,000 to £49,000 (depending on experience)

Location - Chelmsford

We're looking for a dedicated professional to join our team as a Children's Social Worker. Our team works with children and young people up to the age of 18 who are in care – those who are either placed with foster carers or who live in residential homes. They work with the children and young people to ensure their experiences in care are good, and that they are prepared when leaving care or returning home to their family.

Flexibility and wellbeing is for our colleagues working across children's Social Care and that we need to think differently. We have therefore developed a nine-day working fortnight for full time frontline Social Workers within Children’s services.

What You'll Do:

As part of our Children in Care team, you'll be working with children and young people up to the age of 18 who need our help. Whether they're with foster carers or in residential homes, your goal is to ensure their experience in care is a positive one.

You'll visit children and young people in placement, develop permanency plans (including Special Guardianship Orders and adoption), and even help them understand the reasons behind being in care through life-story work. And for some, your support could be the key to them returning home to their birth family.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Assess, plan, review and provide support to a child, family or carer with complex family or social care needs, taking full account of appropriate legal frameworks, policy and guidance.
• Assess family functioning, providing help and support, when relationship breakdown threatens to impair the health or well-being of children at risk of abuse or neglect.
• Work collaboratively, building effective working relationships with other professionals, internally and externally to help children, young people and families improve and gain control of their lives when safety or ability to participate in their community is restricted.
• Carry out an assessment or enquiry and plan responses to safeguard a child from abuse, neglect or exploitation, building effective relationships with children, adults and families as appropriate, including intervention when information or circumstances suggest there may be a need to remove a child from their parents or carers.
• Arrange appropriate alternative care (including, where appropriate a permanent home) in collaboration with children, young people and their parents/carers where the parents/carers cannot care for them.
• Promote autonomy and development with individuals who have complex social needs and are more vulnerable as a result of disability, exclusion, or diminished capacity, for example, working with people with learning disabilities, physical disabilities or diminished capacity.
• Maintain up to date, accurate and high-quality records of activity on cases. Participate in a range of planning and decision making forums including case discussions, Strategy Meetings, Legal Planning meetings, Child Protection Conferences, Statutory Reviews.
• Write court reports and give evidence in relation to children at risk during legal proceedings.

ESSENTIAL:

• You'll need a diploma or degree in social work, CQSW, CSS, or an equivalent qualification.
• You should be registered with Social Work England as a registered Social Worker.
• You'll need to demonstrate your capability in practice, following current professional standards like the Professional Capability Framework (PCF) and Knowledge & Skills Statement (KSS). You'll excel in case recording and confidently handle complex social and family situations.
• Proficiency in using tools like Word and social work case recording systems is a must.
• Flexibility is key – you might need to work evenings and weekends when necessary, ensuring that children's needs are met at all times.
• Driver with your own vehicle. The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wider operational area including travelling around the county of Essex and beyond, transporting service users and their belongings and to be able to do so in an emergency. Driving licence and car or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means is essential.

If this sounds like something you have done before, then Apply NOW.