Children's Social Worker - Fostering

Staffordshire County Council; Stafford; On-site; GBP 28,000 - 35,000; Full time

Job summary

Join Staffordshire County Council as a Social Worker, dedicated to providing support for foster placements. You will conduct assessments and support foster carers, ensuring high-quality outcomes for children. This role requires a passionate professional with relevant experience and a commitment to safeguarding.

Qualifications

• Qualified Social Worker with a minimum of 2 years experience in fostering.
• Understanding and experience in working with children and families.

Responsibilities

• Provide supervision and support to approved Foster Carers.
• Conduct fostering assessments and maintain relationships with children's teams.

Skills

Communication

Empathy

Organizational Skills

Education

Registered with Social Work England

Minimum 2 years post qualifying experience

Job description

Staffordshire has a strong commitment to providing quality foster placements for our children and young people in care. We are also committed to ongoing development and innovation.

The Fostering North Team provides support and supervision to foster carers predominantly residing in the North of Staffordshire with some out of county commitments for approved Family & Friends carers. The team benefit from experienced staff with a wealth of social work knowledge and skills.

Main Responsibilities

You will:

• undertakeregular supervision, support, and unannounced visits to a variety of approved Foster Carers. This will include Mainstream Carers and Family and Friend's Foster Carers.
• undertake fostering assessments in relation to changes of approval, Special Guardianship Orders, long-term fostering assessments, approved support carer assessmentsand foster carer annual reviews.
• maintain excellent working relationships with the children's teams and other professionals to ensure good outcomes for the children and young people in our care.

We have a commitment to the stability of placements, safeguarding children and promoting capacity to provide sufficient placements to meet the needs of children and young people.

The Ideal Candidate

You will be:

• a qualified Social Worker with a minimum of 2 years post qualifying experience, with an understanding and / or experience of working in fostering
• registered with Social Work England.
• have a current UK driving licence and vehicle.

Above all, you willbring the desire to work with children and families to give them the right support, at the right time with the aim of keeping families together where it's safe to do so.

For further information about this role, please contact Jessica Bomparola at [e-mail] .

Interviews will be held on the 10th July 2025

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you'll bring to the role.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.

We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

Our benefits:

We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire

Our recruitment process:

As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities

As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a GoldAward Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as yourapplication meets the minimum criteria for the post.

As you'll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that's why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.