Fostering Social Worker

Salary: Circa £42,840 per annum including On-call allowance

Contract/Hours: Permanent, Full-Time (working 37 hours a week) 

Location: Horfield, Bristol with the flexibility to work from home on occasion

Perks: Annual leave of 29 days (pro-rata) PLUS public holidays, flexible maternity, adoption and paternity packages, annual staff awards, 7% employer contribution pension scheme, employee discount portal with all your favourite brands, check out more on our careers portal. 

– if we receive a high number of applications, we may have to close earlier than advertised. 

We’re thrilled that you’re considering a career with Action for Children so here’s what you need to know…. 

About Us 

At Action for Children, we believe that every child should have a safe and happy childhood. Last year, we helped more than 600,000 children and families across the UK. We work to ensure their voices are heard, and campaign to bring lasting change to their lives. 

About the Role: 

Our three linked services, Fostering South West, Fostering South West Peninsula and Family Breaks Devon provide high quality foster families to vulnerable children and young people from our offices based in Bristol and Exeter.

We also offer the highest standard of care-providing carers with excellent training, supervision and support to achieve the best outcomes for the young people we look after. We strive to provide a good quality of care to young people, always ensuring they are the centre of our approach.

We are looking for an outstanding Fostering Social Worker who can support placements in the South West of England. The role is for 3 days a week (but there may be the possibility of full time in the future) and includes being part of an Out of Hours Telephone Support Service (through participation in a rota) providing support 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year.

As a Fostering Social Worker, you’ll be: 

Providing professional supervision and developmental support, including advice and guidance to fostering families and working with other professionals where appropriate.

Completing complex assessments of applicants to foster, making appropriate recommendations, with a view to ensure outcome focused achievements for children, young people and families.

Supporting fostering families to look after children and young people who have experienced trauma and ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to enable them to undertake this complex task within a family home environment.

Undertaking fostering reviews, providing high quality, analytical reports and presenting to Panel where appropriate, ensuring that children are receiving the best service possible.

Being accountable for ensuring statutory compliance in respect of notifications etc. and meet regulatory body requirements at all times re. registration.

What You’ll Bring: 

Our job description for the Fostering Social Worker outlines the requirements of the role but the ‘must-haves’ are: 

A Social Work qualification.

Valid HCPC registration.

Experience of assessing, supervising and supporting foster carers.

Experience of managing crisis and breakdown in placements, particularly out of hours.

A strong commitment to work within our therapeutic framework to support the needs of children.

The capacity to plan and prioritise, to use electronic records system and IT effectively including participating in virtual meetings and webinars.

Experience of fostering is preferable.

UK driving licence and access to a car is desirable as the role requires extensive travel within the South West of England.

Working here is so much more than a job. Whether this is a career change for you or the next step in your journey, we’d love to hear from you. 

We work together to reach our vision of safe and happy childhoods. A diverse workforce enriches the lives of the children and young people we work with and we welcome applications from everyone. We value and celebrate our differences and as an inclusive workplace we want everyone to be themselves. 

We are committed to safer recruitment practices to protect our service users; therefore, all applicants are expected to have an understanding of and commitment to safeguarding best-practice. 

We can’t wait to hear from you – stay safe and happy.

Application Process: There are 5 sections for you to complete, Personal Details, CV, Supporting Statement & Information, Equality & Diversity, Submission & Declaration. Top Tip… Refer to the job description when writing your Supporting Statement.

Talent Pool: We’d like to hold your details in case similar jobs come up but do let us know if you’d rather we didn’t.

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