Senior Practitioner - Family First

Cambridgeshire County Council; Town of Cambridge; On-site; AUD 89,000 - 96,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation package

CPD days

Refer a Friend bonus (£350)

CARE Academy access

Wellbeing package

Mileage allowance

Job summary

Cambridgeshire County Council is recruiting a Senior Practitioner in Family First to provide expert social work guidance without case holding. The role supports Family Help Managers and FHLPs across Cambridgeshire, with countywide travel and emphasis on safeguarding and service development.

You will be a qualified Social Worker with registration, able to work from multiple locations, and share your expertise to raise standards of practice across the team.

Qualifications

• Must be a qualified Social Worker with registration by Social Work England.
• Ability to work from multiple locations and travel countywide independently.

Responsibilities

• Provide expert social work advice in highly complex assessments and plans.
• Lead induction and support FHLPs to deliver safe, child-centred interventions.
• Offer professional guidance to Family Help Lead Practitioners to plan and deliver high standards of practice.
• Act as practice lead within the team and support staff development.
• Contribute to service development to improve outcomes and drive improvement.
• Oversee safeguarding threshold decisions and advise on appropriate responses.

Skills

Social work experience

Court proceedings

Leadership in complex cases

Education

Social Worker qualification

Social Work England registration

Job description

Senior Practitioner - Family First

Company: Cambridgeshire County Council Salary: £46,956 to £50,157 a year Hours: Full-time Location: Cambridge, CB2 9NL Job type: Permanent Posting date: 23 Oct 2026 Closing date: 21 Nov 2026

Summary

Are you an experienced child protection practitioner? Do you want the ability to use your skills to support the development of a new Families First model? We’d love to hear from you.

We have several Families First Senior Practitioner roles available across Cambridgeshire based within our Targeted Support teams. These new positions will not case-hold or have line management responsibilities, allowing you to focus on providing expert social work advice to our Family Help Lead Practitioners.

The postholders will support all Family Help Managers including those from Targeted Support, Social Care and Lead Child Protection Practitioners to make decisions in relation to appropriate levels of need and response.

Roles could be based in Ely, Wisbech, Huntingdon or Cambridge but will all involve countywide travel.

If you would like to discuss the role in more detail

please email Joanna Middleditch, Targeted Support Service Manager East Cambridgeshire,

via

[e-mail] to arrange a phone call or Teams meeting.

Interviews will be held in person at New Shire Hall wherever possible.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• 6 days of protected time each year to support maintaining your Continuous Professional Development
• A relocation package (eligibility applies)
• Refer a Friend Scheme where if you refer another Social Worker to us who is subsequently employed by us as a result of that introduction, we’ll pay you an introduction fee of £350
• Access to our Cambridgeshire Academy for Reaching Excellence (CARE) who will support your development, enabling you to become the best practitioner you can be

For more information and to see our other benefits, take a look at the benefits brochure attached to this advert.

What will you be doing?

This will be a varied and rewarding role that offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on outcomes for children and families. Key responsibilities will include:

• Working closely with a variety of professionals in our supportive Family Help service.
• Providing professional leadership in situations involving highly complex assessment, intervention, and support planning arrangements.
• Offering expert advice, guidance, and support to alternatively qualified Family Help Lead Practitioners (FHLPs), enabling them to plan and deliver safe, effective, and child-centred interventions for children and families.
• Acting as a practice lead within the team, contributing to the induction of new staff, and supporting FHLPs to deliver high standards of practice.
• Leading and contributing to service development work to enhance outcomes and drive continuous improvement across the service.
• Overseeing and advising on safeguarding threshold decisions.

About you

You are an innovative and reflective practitioner who is committed to continuous learning and service improvement. You have experience building strong relationships with children, families, and other professionals and can evidence proven ability to identify and respond to significant harm.

You must:

• Be a qualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration
• Have the ability to work from a variety of locations and travel countywide independently

This is a Senior Practitioner post, you must be able to demonstrate experience in complex case management, court proceedings, and providing informal support or supervision to others.

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-career