Leicester City Council, where caseloads are capped and social workers are listened to

“Leicester is an exciting place to work.” – That was the conclusion of a recent peer review of Leicester City Council’s children’s social care and early help services by our local authority colleagues in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

What impressed them was not only the passion and energy of our social workers, the aspirations and initiatives of our services, and the city itself.

At Leicester City Council, we are strongly committed to child-centred practice and improving children and young people’s lives by working in partnership to raise aspirations, build achievement and protect the most vulnerable.

It is a commitment that runs through our service like words in a stick of rock.

Diverse cases

“We have made significant progress in improving the quality of services in the past year,” says our principal child and family social worker Kate Wells. “We now have a good workforce development offer, good support and induction for new staff, clarity on our service structure and a real emphasis on the quality of practice.

“Our social workers enjoy the diversity of Leicester and their cases. Leicester is a place where you can work for a diverse population, be part of a welcoming and talented team, and ensure good services and support for our communities.”

As a social worker in Leicester you will be joining an authority that has capped caseloads and not only listens to but responds to what our social workers say will help them help make children and families’ lives better.

When social workers said mobile devices would help them manage their time and better support children, we provided them. When our personal advisors for care leavers said they needed more capacity, we expanded the team.

Reflective supervision

At Leicester we also take social workers’ learning and development seriously. Our AYSEs have comprehensive support and induction, and we are always developing more ways to give social workers, at all stages of their career, new opportunities to develop their skills and experience.

Learning and development should also be about more than reactive training and that’s why Leicester has partnered with De Montfort University to deliver regular ‘bite-sized lectures’ where our social workers learn about the latest research in social care.

There are many other exciting initiatives underway at Leicester too, including:
– Ongoing investment in evidence-based edge of care and specialist services such as our multi-agency CSE hub and therapeutic service for looked-after and adopted children
– The roll out of a new reflective supervision tool that helps social workers form child-centred plans
– Work to implement the Signs of Safety approach across our services
– The development of a child-centred practice methodology

Be part of our talented team

We are looking for confident and imaginative professionals to join our team of talented practitioners.

If you are motivated and passionate about making a difference to the children and families across our incredible city, then we want to hear from you.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact Roshni Kalyani on 0116 454 4444 or email roshni.kalyani@leicester.gov.uk or check our current vacancies.