Return Home Interview Worker

Suffolk County Council; Ipswich; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 39,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Leave entitlement & holidays

LGPS pension

Benefits: travel, lifestyle, health &

Pay progression & annual increments

Training & knowledge development

Career development opportunities

Staff networks

Flexible working

Job summary

Suffolk County Council is seeking a compassionate Return Home Interview Worker to join the Integrated Front Door in Ipswich. You will directly engage with children and young people after missing episodes, ensuring their voices are heard and supported.

The role informs safeguarding decisions and develops protective strategies with partners. You will build trusted relationships, assess risks, and contribute to safeguarding plans while coordinating with other agencies.

Qualifications

• A Level 5 qualification (or equivalent) in a relevant field.
• Experience of working directly with children, young people and families.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding, risk identification and early intervention.
• Ability to build trust and communicate effectively with young people.
• Confidence to assess situations and use professional judgement to support safe outcomes.
• Experience of working with partner agencies and contributing to multi-agency responses.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage your own workload.
• Knowledge of Signs of Safety or solution-focused approaches.
• Experience of working with complex family needs or safeguarding concerns.

Responsibilities

• Undertake timely Return Home Interviews, ensuring the child's voice and experience are central.
• Identify risk, vulnerability and protective factors to inform safeguarding responses.
• Work closely with the Integrated Front Door to inform decision-making and planning.
• Support identification and disruption of exploitation and contextual risks.
• Build trusting, respectful relationships to encourage engagement and disclosure.
• Share insight with partners to strengthen multi-agency safeguarding responses.
• Use learning from interviews to identify themes, patterns and emerging risks.

Skills

Risk assessment

Safeguarding expertise

Communication with children

Multi-agency collaboration

Time management

Education

Level 5 qualification

Job description

• Suffolk County Council
• Address: Landmark House, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 5PB, Community and onsite
• Salary: £35,570 per annum, (pro rata if part time)
• Hours: 37 hours per week, flexible working options available
• Contract: Permanent

Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Suffolk County Council.

We're looking for a compassionate and motivated Return Home Interview Worker to join our Integrated Front Door. If you're passionate about hearing young people's voices and making a real difference following missing episodes, we'd love to hear from you.

Your role and responsibilities

This is a unique and important role where you'll work directly with children and young people following missing episodes, helping them feel heard, understood and supported.

On a day-to-day basis, you'll build trusted relationships with young people, exploring their experiences and identifying risks, vulnerabilities and opportunities for support. Your work will directly inform safeguarding decisions and help shape better outcomes.

This role is county wide with an office base in Ipswich. The expectation is that staff are office-based aside from arranged visits.

You will:

• Undertake timely Return Home Interviews, ensuring the child's voice and experience are central
• Identify risk, vulnerability and protective factors to inform safeguarding responses
• Work closely with the Integrated Front Door to inform decision-making and planning
• Support identification and disruption of exploitation and contextual risks
• Build trusting, respectful relationships to encourage engagement and disclosure
• Share insight with partners to strengthen multi-agency safeguarding responses
• Use learning from interviews to identify themes, patterns and emerging risks.

You'll play a vital role in helping us understand why children go missing and how we can better protect and support them.

What you will need

We're looking for someone who is passionate about working with children and young people and confident managing risk and safeguarding concerns.

Our ideal candidate will bring:

• A Level 5 qualification (or equivalent experience) in a relevant field.
• Experience of working directly with children, young people and families.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding, risk identification and early intervention.
• Ability to build trust and communicate effectively with young people.
• Confidence to assess situations and use professional judgement to support safe outcomes.
• Experience of working with partner agencies and contributing to multi-agency responses.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage your own workload.
• Knowledge of Signs of Safety or solution-focused approaches.
• Experience of working with complex family needs or safeguarding concerns.

Due to the nature of this role, you will be required to have a driving licence and access to personal transport. If you feel you can meet these travel requirements through other suitable means, please contact the Hiring Manager before applying to discuss.

The team

At Suffolk County Council, we aspire for every child to live their best life.

The Integrated Front Door is a fast-paced, multi-agency environment bringing together professionals from across the partnership - including social care, police, health and education - to ensure concerns are responded to quickly, consistently and effectively.

You'll be part of a service that:

• Supports early decision-making and earlier help
• Works within a shared safeguarding framework and statutory duties
• Promotes joined-up, high-quality responses for children and families
• Plays a key role in Suffolk's Families First approach.

We believe that being together matters. Visible leadership supports better decision-making, stronger oversight, professional development and a culture where practitioners feel supported to do their best work.

Empowering Everyone

We're big believers in potential, possibility and the power of different ideas. We're always searching for ways to encourage, respect and enable everyone to be the best they can be. We want to represent the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from all individuals, especially those from groups that are currently underrepresented in the organisation, as shown in our Workforce Equality Report .

For more information

For a casual chat, please contact either Milly Clark by either calling 01473 263139 or emailing [e-mail] or Sean Segal by either calling 01473 260673 or emailing [e-mail]

Closing date: 11.30 pm, 5 October 2026.

Interview date: Week commencing 12 October 2026.

Promoted as FJ (Featured Job) on Suffolk Jobs Direct.

In return, you'll enjoy:

• up to 29 days annual leave entitlement (pro rata), plus UK bank holidays and two paid volunteering days
• membership of a competitive Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• travel, lifestyle, health and wellbeing benefits
• performance-related annual pay progression, in addition to an annual cost-of-living pay increase
• training and encouragement to expand your knowledge
• a variety of career development opportunities across our organisation
• diverse and active staff networks
• flexible working options, with the right to request flexible working from your first day

If you want to know more about our benefits, values and equality commitments please visit our Suffolk County Council careers website (careers.Suffolk.gov.uk) .