Children's Social Worker
Children's Social Worker
Derby, Nottingham and Peterborough
Salary £36,845 - £41,085
You become a Social Worker because you wanted to change lives. So you strive to be outstanding for those children and families you serve despite the challenges we have to overcome day-to-day.
At Cafcass we share your ambition and we have a strong focus on ensuring consistently good and outstanding practice in our social work. We know our staff can't achieve this without being able to work flexibly, having regular supervision and ongoing professional development opportunities.
We are currently recruiting for our Early Intervention Team (EIT) and have opportunities across the Midlands. Therefore, whether you are in the East of the region where you could join our teams working from Peterborough, Nottingham or Derby.
All our Family Court Advisers - this is what we call our Social Workers - are provided with laptops and smartphones so you can work in our offices, at court, at home and, of course, with children and families.
Let us tell you a bit more about the EIT, which is the front door to Cafcass Services for children and their family. The role of a Family Court Advisor in this team is to robustly apply safeguarding knowledge to ensure that the client only intervenes in the lives of those children who needs a service, thus respecting each child's rights to family life and privacy.
The service is fast paced, energetic, drawing on Child Protection expertise, analytical risk assessment, identifying key issues for the court and making safe recommendations in the best interests of the child. As an EIT Family Court adviser, you will attend initial hearings with Court Hearings to ensure that children remain central to all decision making.
You will predominantly achieve this by conducting effective telephone interviews with applicants and respondents and assessing information received from other agencies. You will then collate this to allow you to succinctly and expertly communicate advice in the court through clear, evidence-based reports and representations.
As you would expect there are a few key things we need you to be:
Social Work qualified
HCPC registered
Experienced at working with highly vulnerable children and families
Expert in safeguarding, child engagement, inter-agency working, case analysis, planning and recording.
Our work is demanding so for you to succeed and truly make a difference you should be someone who;
Is resilient , self-sufficient, emotionally intelligent and organised
Can prioritise their work in accordance to the need of the child and their families.
Has strong, intuitive IT skills and is willing to embrace modern ways of working.
Is an effective verbal and written communicator and able to effectively communicate by telephone.
Now we've told you about the role we hope you're nearly ready to tell us a little about yourself by completing an application. Before you do, let us give you a flavour of the benefits you'll receive should you join us;
Competitive salary
Generous holiday entitlement
Membership of a Local Government Pension Scheme
Potential to bring your continuous service with you providing enhanced benefits
Health and Wellbeing support including Healthcare Scheme Membership
Payment of HCPC fees
Childcare Vouchers
Cycle to Work Scheme
Social work benefits:
Learning and development including: Induction, face-to-face, on-line and external workshops, internal library, internal social policy department, national peer-to-peer development.
Supervision, Coaching and practice development.
Strong focus on talent management and career enhancement including promotion or linear development.
State of the art equipment, including SMART phones, IT, access to systems on the go, SKYPE for business.
Consistent support and advice and access to a manager or supervising social worker who knows you.
Finally, we'd like to let you know of the timescales we are working to so you can know when to expect to hear from us and potentially you may need to be available for interview(s).
Closing date: 10th September
Telephone interviews: 19th to 26th September
Final interviews: 2nd to 13th October (various locations)