Assistant Team Manager - Fostering Team

London Borough of Hounslow; Hounslow; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A local government authority in England is seeking an Assistant Team Manager for the Fostering Team. In this role, you will supervise and manage Social Workers while ensuring compliance and high standards of service delivery for looked-after children and foster carers. The ideal candidate will have strong leadership skills, knowledge of legislative issues, and the ability to build effective relationships. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to an important community service fostering growth and support for families in need.

Benefits

Extensive training programme

Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Qualifications

• Ability to support Social Work staff in the preparation of reports.
• In-depth knowledge of legislative issues and changes affecting fostering services.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships.

Responsibilities

• Supervise and manage staff, ensuring compliance with fostering service standards.
• Contribute to strategic policy developments for the fostering service.
• Support provision of high-quality fostering services.

Skills

Support Social Work staff

Legislative knowledge

Performance management

Effective communication

IT competency

Job description

About Us

We’d love you to join us at The London Borough of Hounslow! Our people are deeply committed to providing excellent services to our residents, doing all we can to make lives as good as they can be. We are an outstanding council, serving an outstanding borough. With brilliant, visionary leadership, a dynamic Cabinet and a can‑do culture, we’ve built strong partnerships which have transformed how we serve one of London’s most diverse boroughs. Hounslow is the world in one place and full of potential. We are stepping up for our residents like never before.

Diversity and Inclusion

We live by five core values: Lead with Heart, Do New, Pass on the Power, Harness the Mix and Be a Rock. All our work has equality, diversity and inclusion at its very heart, best articulated in “Harness the Mix”. We serve a diverse community, we have a diverse workforce and we are committed to being an inclusive employer. We work hard to create representation across our workforce and leadership community, we have thriving employee network groups and our learning and development programmes help us lead, model and breathe ways of working that eliminate inequality, inequity, injustice and bias.

As part of this, and under our commitments as a Disability Confident Employer, we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates. There’s space for you to tell us what you need within our application form.

Benefits

We offer an extensive training programme to support ongoing training and career development.

About The Role

This is an exciting opportunity to be a part of a vibrant, energetic and committed team. The position is for an Assistant Team Manager based in the Fostering Team, which is under the umbrella of Corporate Parenting. You will be one of three Assistant Team Managers in the team, offering direct support and management to qualified Social Workers.

Your duties and responsibilities will include:

• Supervision and management oversight of staff, offering guidance and opportunities for development through support and training, and ensuring compliance as a fostering service.
• Contributing to the strategic policy and procedural developments of the fostering service.
• Maintaining high standards of professional practice, working at all times in the best interests of children and foster carers, ensuring that all staff you supervise have clear evidence‑based practice.
• Supporting the provision of high‑quality fostering services to looked‑after children, foster carers, private foster carers and close liaison with social workers from other children services teams in Hounslow.

About The Team You’ll Be Working In

You will be working in the Fostering Team. The team consists of supervised Social Workers whose duties range from participating in the weekly team duty rota, supervising and supporting foster carers, completing form F assessments, private fostering assessments, annual reviews, running training groups, recruitment and campaign events to recruit new households, etc.

About You

We are looking for the following skills:

• The ability to support Social Work staff in the preparation of reports for annual reviews or fostering panel and other purposes, including an in‑depth knowledge of the operation of legislative issues and changes affecting the delivery of fostering services to looked‑after children and foster carers.
• Ability to utilize supervision to address poor practice and, where relevant, utilize departmental policies to manage performance and disciplinary issues.
• Ability to co‑ordinate and manage the work of the team, balancing needs and resources to achieve, including the ability to manage service delivery within budget constraints.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with statutory and independent sector partners, ensuring that all protocols are adhered to and monitored and to effectively consult and communicate with users, carers and staff.
• Ability to ensure that services are developed and delivered within an Equal Opportunities framework and in accordance with the council’s policies and procedures.
• Ability to use necessary IT systems in a competent manner.
• Ability to work within specified statutory timescales and consistently meet deadlines.

Essential For The Role

Enhanced DBS check is required for the role.

How to Apply

If the points above resonate with you, we’d love you to put in an application. Read more about the work you’ll be doing in the Role Profile. Don’t meet every single requirement? We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they think they can’t tick every box. At Hounslow, we realise the ‘perfect candidate’ doesn’t exist. So, if you can do most of what we’re looking for, go ahead and apply. You may be just the right candidate for the job or be perfect for one of our other roles!

Interview Information

Interviews for this job will be held during the week commencing 5/1/26.

For further information about the role, please contact: Email:
Telephone: [phone]