Senior Practitioner - Safeguarding (2 posts)
Newcastle City Council
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
Newcastle City Council is seeking a Senior Social Work Practitioner to lead practice within the Safeguarding Service and to support Families First transformations. You will mentor practitioners, model relational, strengths-based approaches, and drive high-quality, restorative interventions to ensure families receive timely, coordinated support.
The role focuses on multi-agency collaboration with police, health, and education partners, delivering proportionate responses to harm and promoting
Qualifications
- Oversee impactful casework ensuring high-quality outcomes.
- Mentor and develop practitioners to strengthen practice.
- Model relational, strengths-based approaches in safeguarding.
- Champion restorative interventions and coordinated, relationship-led support.
Responsibilities
- Lead practice within Families First and safeguarding services.
- Oversee complex child protection casework and decision making.
- Provide supervision and guidance to frontline social workers and practice leads.
Skills
Job description
Newcastle is more than a workplace - it’s a community. A vibrant, multicultural city where creativity, kindness, and resilience run deep. From the Quayside to Jesmond Dene, from Ouseburn’s indie cafés to our world class universities, this is a city that welcomes you and your ideas with open arms.
We are recruiting to the exciting role of Senior Social Work Practitioner to support the our Safeguarding Service
You’ll oversee impactful casework, mentor practitioners, and model relational, strengths-based practice. As a key practice leader within Families First, you’ll champion high quality, restorative interventions and ensure families receive coordinated, relationship led support.
The ambition for Child Protection in Newcastle is for families to receive the right support at the right time and at the first time from the right people to ensure children are kept safe. Child Protection is underpinned by relational practice between partner agencies and families.
In Newcastle, we have established a Safeguarding Delivery Service and a Multiagency Child Protection Team which provides a seamless service when children are at risk of or have suffered significant harm.
Within our Safeguarding Delivery Service and Multiagency Child Protection Team there is a range of skills and experience delivered by Social Workers, overseen by experienced Team Managers with the support of Child Protection Lead Practitioners with collaboration between partner agencies such as Police, Health and Education. Our aim is to provide a proportionate multi-agency response to harm.
The ambition for Child Protection in Newcastle is for families to receive the right support at the right time and at the first time from the right people to ensure children are kept safe. Child Protection is underpinned by relational practice between partner agencies and families.
In Newcastle, we have established a Safeguarding Delivery Service and a Multiagency Child Protection Team which provides a seamless service when children are at risk of or have suffered significant harm. Within our Safeguarding Delivery Service and Multiagency Child Protection Team there is a range of skills and experience delivered by Social Workers, overseen by experienced Team Managers with the support of Child Protection Lead Practitioners with collaboration between partner agencies such as Police, Health and Education. Our aim is to provide a proportionate multi-agency response to harm.
We’re not just a local authority. We’re a city with ambition, heart, and a bold vision for children. At Children & Families Newcastle, we’re building something special: a service rooted in relationships, restorative practice, and real impact.
We’ve been judged Good with Outstanding areas by Ofsted — and we’re not stopping there. We’re working towards becoming a UNICEF Child Friendly City and a Marmot City, tackling inequality and putting children at the centre of everything we do.
Families First is at the heart of our transformation in Newcastle. It’s a whole system shift designed to give children and families the right help at the right time and to make our practice more meaningful, relational, and effective.
Through earlier intervention and prevention, our new Family Help teams step in at the right time, when families need support, helping them work through challenges they face. We’re breaking down traditional silos by bringing local authority services together with police, health, and education partners to create a single, seamless system of support.
Families are placed firmly in the lead through Family Led Decision Making now embedded as standard practice, ensuring their voices shape the decisions that matter most. We’re strengthening support networks so more children can remain safely at home, including increased support for kinship carers. Instead of “stop/start” involvement, families will experience consistent, long‑term relationships with one Lead Practitioner walking alongside them throughout their journey. And when significant harm is present, our new multidisciplinary child protection teams provide expert, decisive intervention. Families First is about doing what works, earlier, together, and with families at the centre.
Our values are simple but powerful: Be safe. Be heard. Be innovative. Be supported.
We want Newcastle to be a place where people enjoy coming to work, where you feel able to talk openly when things are difficult, where your ideas matter, and where you’re encouraged to grow. We invest in our people because we want them to stay, progress, and build long‑term careers with us.
Our leadership team is visible, approachable, and deeply connected to the realities of frontline practice. They understand the pressures, celebrate the successes, and stand alongside you when challenges arise.
We know that great social work happens when people have balance, space, and trust. That’s why we offer:
- While many employers are pushing for a return to the office, we continue to recognise the value of working from home.Which means hybrid working that genuinely works - not just in name, meaning the freedom to avoid the rush hour or do the school run.
- The ability to carry over up to one week’s worth of flexi with an allowance of two days a month to take off.
- A culture that recognises you’re a whole person, not just an employee.
- A Connected, Supportive Workplace
Our teams are based in our locality bases in the heart of our communities and at Partnership House, a modern, collaborative space designed to support meaningful relationships and team connection.
You’ll also benefit from:
- Free parking
- Excellent transport links.Regent Centre Metro is a 5minute walk from the office, and it’s only 13 minutes into the city centre for after work plans.
- Pool car scheme
- NHS car fleet scheme
We want you to feel valued, not just in your work, but in your everyday life. Through our benefits package, you’ll have access to:
- 5% off B&Q
- £12.50 spa days at the Crowne Plaza
- Discounted gym memberships
- 10% off Mr Mulligans
- A wide range of wellbeing, lifestyle, and financial support offers It’s all part of creating a workplace where you feel appreciated, supported, and part of something bigger.
Newcastle is a city full of energy, warmth, and opportunity. A place where people look out for each other. A place where you can build a career, make a difference, and feel like you belong.
This isn’t just another job. This is Newcastle.
Newcastle City Council is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and to building services that reflect, value and respond to our communities.
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, and particularly from individuals whose identities or experiences are currently underrepresented in our workforce.
We recognise that this role involves sensitive and sometimes emotionally demanding work relating to racism and inequity. You will be supported through reflective spaces, supervision and team‑based support tailored to your needs
Interested in a career with Newcastle City Council?
If you’re committed, and ready to take the next step in your career, this is your moment.
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