Children's Social Worker - Assessment Team

Cambridge County Council; Huntingdon; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing package

6 days protected CPD time

Relocation package

Pay progression scheme

Retention payments up to £8,392 over 3

Refer a Friend scheme £350

CARE development

Job summary

Cambridgeshire County Council is seeking passionate Social Workers for its Assessment Team. The role focuses on safeguarding, statutory assessments, and building empowering relationships with children and families in a fast-paced environment.

Based in Huntingdon with potential relocation notes, you will work across the county and collaborate with CIAOs, ensuring timely, proportionate responses and excellent care planning to improve outcomes.

Qualifications

• Qualified Social Worker with Social Work England registration.
• Ability to work from a variety of locations and travel countywide.

Responsibilities

• Acting as the lead professional and ensure all matters in respect of safeguarding are dealt with promptly, effectively and in line with child protection procedures, escalating where necessary.
• Undertaking statutory assessments to identify and respond to needs, building on strength and ensuring that analysis is robust and leads to clear outcomes that can be met through SMART targets.
• Engaging with children, young people, and their families to develop effective and empowering relationships which facilitate change and improve outcomes.
• Producing high quality reports and plans for a variety of forums, including court under Sections 7, 37 and 31, which are child focussed and reflect their experience.
• Completing SWET assessments and care plans where needed, contributing to positive and sustainable outcomes for children.

Education

Social Work England registration

Job description

We are looking for passionate and enthusiastic Social Workers who have the child's voice at the heart of everything they do to join us in our Assessment Team!

The Assessment Team is the first point of contact for statutory intervention. Our work is dynamic, fast-paced and focused on delivering timely, proportionate responses to children and families at levels 3 and 4 of the Cambridgeshire Levels of Need framework.

We work closely with our Targeted Support Services to ensure that families can be stepped down to early help when appropriate, helping to strengthen relationships and prevent escalation.

We are proud to have created a space for our social care colleagues to have an area to reflect as a team, as well as conducting monthly individual supervisions. We recognise that the job can bring challenges and are proud to offer our colleagues holistic support. You will have the opportunity to be creative with care planning and will have the opportunity to have your ideas and voice heard.

Our team is supported by Children's Information and Advice Officers (CIAOs) which makes administrative tasks much more manageable.

We currently have a vacancy in our Huntingdon Team based at Scott House in Huntingdon and our South Cambridgeshire Team based at Fawcett House in Cambridge. However, please note that as part of the Council's ongoing Asset Review, the Fawcett House office base may change during 2026. Teams currently located at Fawcett House may be relocated to an alternative site within the County, which in most cases will be in close proximity to the current location.

In Children's Services we are working to reshape what we do and how we do it. Why not be part of it?

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 commitment.

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 in maintaining your Continuous Professional Development
• A relocation package (eligibility applies)
• A pay progression scheme to enable you to accelerate through the pay grade as you gain experience and skills
• Scalable retention payments of up to £8,392 over a 3 year period, starting after your first full year of employment
• ARefer a Friend Schemewhere 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?

Day-to-day responsibilities of a Social Worker in Assessment include:

• Acting as the lead professional and ensure all matters in respect of safeguarding are dealt with promptly, effectively and in line with child protection procedures, escalating where necessary.
• Undertaking statutory assessments to identify and respond to needs, building on strength and ensuring that analysis is robust and leads to clear outcomes that can be met through SMART targets.
• Engaging with children, young people, and their families to develop effective and empowering relationships which facilitate change and improve outcomes.
• Producing high quality reports and plans for a variety of forums, including court under Sections 7, 37 and 31, which are child focussed and reflect their experience.

• Completing SWET assessments and care plans where needed, contributing to positive and sustainable outcomes for children.

About you

We're looking for confident and dynamic individuals who enjoy making a difference in their local community, are curious and spot things that others might not see, enjoys building relationships and likes to explore possibilities.

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

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

Please note we are not accepting applications from candidates living overseas who require sponsorship to move to the UK

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-careers