Children and Families Advanced Practitioner

Gloucestershire County Council; Stroud; On-site; GBP 48,000 - 52,000; Full time

Job summary

A local authority in the UK is seeking an Advanced Practitioner for their Children and Families team in Stroud. This full-time role includes developing social work practices, providing supervision, and modeling systemic practices. Applicants should be registered with Social Work England and have senior level experience. Benefits include a competitive salary of £48,226 - £51,356, relocation assistance, and a supportive work environment.

Benefits

Salary between £48,226 - £51,356 per annum

Welcome payment up to £4,000

Annual retention payment of £2,000

Relocation package up to £8,000

Flexible working opportunities

25.5 days annual leave

Local Government Pension Scheme

Employee Assistance Programme

Qualifications

• Hold an expert role within the team to develop and deliver complex social work practice.
• Model Gloucestershire’s relational systemic practice model.
• Provide reflective supervision to Newly Qualified Social Workers.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate the team’s ability to improve the quality of practice.
• Quality assure assessments and support social workers’ learning.
• Work closely with the Social Work Academy for training.

Skills

Experience at Senior Social Worker level

Social Work England/Wales registration

Full driving licence

Enhanced DBS clearance

Education

Recognised qualification in Social Work

Completed ASYE year (if qualified after 2012)

Job description

Children and Families Advanced Practitioner

Job Location: Gloucestershire

This is a Gloucestershire County Council job.

• Job Location: Stroud
• Salary: £48,226 - £51,356 per annum
• Hours per Week: 37
• Closing Date: 07/11/2025
• Job Requisition Number: 13109
• This post is open to job share

We are currently seeking an Advanced Practitioner to join our Children and Families team in Stroud on a permanent basis.

Benefits

For all your hard work. You will receive the following:

• between £48,226 - £51,356 per annum subject to experience
• welcome payment of up to £4,000*
• annual retention payment of £2,000*
• relocation package up to £8,000*
• flexible and agile working opportunities
• 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service
• an option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year (pro rata for part-time staff)
• family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
• supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone.
• an in-house Occupational Health service
• employee discount scheme
• cycle to work scheme
• links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
• career development and qualification opportunities
• access to our Social Work Academy
• paid SWE registration renewal

Our vision

Right child, right support, right time, every time

In our recent inspection in June 2025, our Children’s Services have been officially judged as ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ elements. Ofsted also said ‘Leaders have set out a clear vision for delivering success for children, by modelling values and creating a culture where the workforce, children and families feel valued and heard; risk is managed confidently with bottom lines clearly set out.’

This marks an important step in our journey to improve outcomes for our children and young people, and we remain focused on our mission: to continue building on this success and ensure that every child and young person in our county has the opportunity to thrive.

Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Social Work Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award‑winning workforce.

We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to be part of an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.

About you

As an Advanced Practitioner you are at the heart of Gloucestershire’s practice model. You will hold an expert role within your team. Your role includes facilitating the team and service’s ability to develop and deliver complex social work practice through a combination of joint working, practice advice and guidance, and quality assurance.

You will also model Gloucestershire’s relational systemic practice model and will help promote Gloucestershire’s practice standards across the team.

Advanced Practitioners provide direction to team members around improving the quality of practice. This may include activities such as quality assuring an assessment or attending joint visits with social workers to support their learning.

As an Advanced Practitioner you may provide Newly Qualified Social Workers in the team with monthly reflective supervision and undertake one of the observations of practice, however management of the NQSW will sit with Team Managers. You will also support any Social Work students within the team.

You will have a joint lead for a particular area of practice offering a weekly consultation to practitioners from across the service to book into, to support them to develop their practice in that specific area.

You will work closely with the Social Work Academy through regular forums and training to ensure standardised practice across the teams, bringing new learning and training opportunities to social workers within your team.

As an Advanced Practitioner you will hold a small number of cases, ensuring you have dedicated time to follow your other duties.

Additional resources

To find out more about this role take a look at our video here: https://youtu.be/_F58gxejBqY

As well as your experience as a frontline Social Worker, there are some things we require of you to be successfully appointed to this post:

Qualifications

• Social Work England/ Wales registration
• experience at Senior Social Worker level
• a recognised qualification in Social Work
• to have completed your ASYE year (if you qualified after 2012)
• a full driving licence and willingness to drive
• enhanced DBS clearance

How to apply

For an informal chat about this role, please email [e-mail] with your name, number and what you wish to discuss, and a member of the team will give you a call within 48 hours.

To ensure a personalised and responsive recruitment experience, all applicants will receive a call from the recruitment team to discuss this role, where you would like to practice, and in what area, and to book you in for an interview.

Interviews for this role will be held in person at our Stroud locality office week commencing 15th December.

Additional Information

To access the Job Profile for this role, please follow the link below: Advanced Practitioner Role Profile

This position is subject to a DBS check.