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Experienced Social Workers (Children's) – Apply Now

Employer
South Gloucestershire Council
Location
Yate, Bristol
Salary
From £30,095 to £41,591
Closing date
17 Nov 2022

Job Details

Experienced Social Workers (Children's) – Apply Now

How you'll make a difference

We pride ourselves in the way we listen to and react to the needs of our social workers, that's why South Gloucestershire Council has recently invested not only in our career pathways, hybrid working and we have also increased the size of a number of our social work teams to provide further permanent support to meet the needs of our social workers.  We’ve created 60 new roles, which will mean consistently lower caseloads for our social workers, so they can deliver genuinely child-centred support. 

Our social workers make a real difference. Every day they work with families to help children and young people who have had a difficult start in life to achieve their ambitions. 

  • Listening to young people and putting them at the heart of all that we do
  • Working in partnership with families, equipping them with the skills they need to ensure young people live in happy, healthy and safe homes.

Whether you have just passed your ASYE, or are a Senior Social Worker with many years of experience, we are sure South Gloucestershire Council can provide you the support, development and progression you wish for.  Did you know we can appoint to any appropriate grade to suit your skills and experience; and can cater for those looking to progress towards both subject expert roles or managerial pathways - so do apply and start your next chapter with us.

What will you be doing?

We have a strong culture of giving staff the time, freedom and support to explore new and better ways of doing things.

Each team is different, you may be screening and assessing welfare concern referrals made within our Access and Response Teams, or working with foster carers and children in care under the Corporate Parenting service.  Perhaps protecting our most vulnerable children in a locality team or the 0-25 Disabilities Service; or working with young adults as they begin their journey to independence as care leavers.  

Every piece of the social care structure is critical and you will have a long term impact on children’s lives, however we can only provide the best for children, young people and families thanks to people like you delivering high quality, child-centred practices, which ensure the best outcomes for children and families within your specific area of practice.  

Our Integrated Children’s Service is made up of four primary social work service areas and their sub-teams.  We are always keen to speak with Social Workers of all experience levels about your aspirations and interests to see if we can offer you a suitable opportunity based on your preferences.  The teams listed below will be noted to show where there are current live vacancies we are recruiting to:

  • 0-25 Disabilities Service
    • 0-18 Children with Disabilities Team (Two teams) - Vacancy available
    • 16-25 Young Adults with Disabilities Team (Adult Care Act) - No vacancies
       
  • Access and Response
    • Access Team - Vacancy available
    • Response Teams (Five Teams) - Vacancy available
       
  • Corporate Parenting
    • Fostering Team (Two Teams) - No vacancies
    • Therapeutic Fostering Team -No vacancies
    • Looked After Children Team (Children in Care) - Vacancy available
    • Transitions to Independence Team (Leaving Care) - No vacancies
    • Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) Team - Vacancy available
       
  • Social Care Long Term
    • South Locality, Child Protection - Kingswood Hub (Two Teams) -Vacancy available
    • North Locality – Child Protection - Patchway Hub (Two Teams) - Vacancy available
    • Central Locality, Child Protection - Yate Hub - Vacancy available
    • Central Locality, Exploitation, Yate Hub - No vacancies

What we need from you

  • You will be a qualified social worker with relevant registration to practice and a good understanding of asset and strengths based approaches to social work
  • You will show that you are a problem solver, confident about making important decisions, underpinned by a genuine passion to work collaboratively with children, young people and families to meet their goals and aspirations
  • You will be able to demonstrate innovation, positivity and dedication. You’ll welcome challenge and embrace change. 

How a career at South Gloucestershire Council is different

We invest in the careers of our people and we are recognised for the quality, breadth and depth of our training and development offer, which helps our people make the greatest long-term difference in their work.

A career at South Gloucestershire is an opportunity for you to progress when you are ready. 

Any post can become any social worker grade, be it at initial recruitment or through internal progression, our grades and salaries are:

  • Social Worker £32,020 - £34,723
  • Advanced Social Worker £36,298 - £39,493
  • Senior Social Worker £40,478 - £43,516

We have a fluid career progression programme and structure, what does this mean for you? 

  • You no longer need to wait for a vacancy to gain promotion.
  • Apply for progression assessment when you are ready, no restrictions on application windows.
  • Earn a higher income for your recognised experience.
  • Gain promotion without needing to change teams, managers or employer – fast track your potential.
  • Senior roles leading to both managerial or practice specialist careers.
  • Gain experience in other teams with secondment opportunities encouraged.

These posts attract a gross lump sum £3,000 ‘recruitment payment’ offered to enable Social Workers who have already successfully completed their ASYE to join our permanent workforce.  This is payable upon successful completion of your probationary period (after approximately 3-6 months) and is subject to eligibility criteria.  These posts are also eligible for the annual £3,000 ‘retention payment’, payable in November annually to those with two years’ service with the council in Integrated Children’s Services In an eligible post, inclusive of any ASYE period.

We also provide up to £8,000 relocation package, Housing Pilot, flexible working and a suite of employee benefits  including a generous annual leave entitlement, pension and Social Work England registration fees reimbursement.

We know our team work best when they have balance in their lives and we offer genuine flexibility to help them achieve that work/life balance.

We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.

More information about our wider Children's Service can be found at www.socialworksouthglos.co.uk

Apply now with your CV and your personal statement, and a member of the team will be in contact with you to progress your application as a social worker here at South Gloucestershire Council. 

Please note submissions will be reviewed weekly and interview panels take place every Friday morning via Microsoft Teams video link. 

Job Description 

Company

At South Gloucestershire Council, we’ll support you at every moment.

We’re a positive, proactive team, with supportive management who listen to ideas, and act on them – fast. Coming out of Covid, we’ve seen rapidly increasing demand to support children and families with ever more complex needs. We recognised the pressure this was placing on our frontline teams and to ensure we can deliver on our high ambitions for our children and young people, we’re making significant new investments in these areas.

  • We’re expanding our frontline teams. We’ve created 60 new roles, which will mean consistently lower caseloads for our social workers, so they can deliver genuinely child-centred support.
  • We’re making it easier for staff to work flexibly, enabling them to work how and where they need to, to do their jobs as well as they can.
  • We’re strengthening our reward offer to recognise the fantastic job our staff do.
  • We’re adopting clinical supervision to support staff because we recognise that our work can be tough emotionally. It builds on our training offer, helping staff to develop critical thinking skills and support their work with families.
  • We’re building early intervention partnership capacity because we know we can achieve better results for families if we get multi-agency working right.
  • We’re increasing what we spend on evidence-based specialist expertise and capabilities, including specialist trauma support and an in-house psychologist to support families.
  • We’re introducing new initiatives like the Mockingbird extended family model in fostering, a Caring Dads scheme and a new approach to domestic abuse.
  • We’re enhancing an already exceptional training and development offer. A new systemic practice academy will drive our focus on relationship based social work.
  • Finally, it might be boring, but we’re investing in our systems and processes, because we want them to help us, rather than hold us back in our work.

These investments demonstrate our absolute focus on providing an excellent, family-centred service.

We keep workloads manageable, we welcome flexible working and we’re recognised for the opportunities we provide for career development, training and secondment. It’s not the managers who say this – it’s our colleagues.

Right now, we’re looking for talented, ambitious social workers to join us across our adult and children’s services.

Our commitments to you

- Unmatched training, development and secondment opportunities
- A proactive team with supportive management
- Commitment to excellence
- Realistic caseloads
- Flexible working opportunities
- A comprehensive Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) programme

South Gloucestershire offers a rich mix of stunning countryside and urban culture. At the same time, due to our being near to the M4, M5 and M32, it’s an easy commute from Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and, with the bridge charges recently abolished, south Wales.

If you’re determined to be here for those who need you, then we’re determined to be here for you.

It really is an exciting time to join us on our journey. For more information or to apply for a position with South Gloucestershire Council in as little as five minutes, please visit our social work recruitment website Experienced Social Workers (Children's) – Apply Now in Yate - South Gloucestershire Council (southglos.gov.uk) - alternatively if you wish to have an informal confidential discussion, please contact our dedicated Recruitment Advisor at joe.scrase@southglos.gov.uk

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