Senior Social Work Practitioner

Leicestershire County Council; East Midlands; On-site; GBP 43,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional government authority in the East Midlands seeks a Senior Practitioner to provide intensive family support services. You will work closely with families to promote positive changes in children's lives using strengths-based approaches. Applicants must have a Social Work degree and be registered with Social Work England, alongside experience in child protection and safeguarding. Competitive salary and flexible working options available.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Support for professional development

Qualifications

• Degree in Social Work approved by Social Work England or equivalent.
• Experienced level 3 social worker in a children's social work team.
• Experience in child protection, care proceedings, and safeguarding.

Responsibilities

• Provide intensive and focused support to families in their homes.
• Support the Team Manager in providing a quality Child in Need service.
• Develop effective relationships leading to positive behavior change.

Skills

Creative support

Strengths-based approaches

Trauma-informed practices

Ability to analyse information

Supervising social work students

Education

Degree in Social Work

Job description

Organisation:Leicestershire County Council

WorkLocation:Hinckley Hub, Granville Road, Hinckley, LE10 0PP

WorkerCategory:Field-Based Worker

Salary:£43,860 - £47,829 per annum (pro rata for part-time)

WorkingHours:37 hours per week

ContractType:Permanent

Closing Date:23rd November 2025

Interview Date(s):TBC

Right support at the right time. Working with the whole family to offer practical help, building on strengths and community support to improve daily life, positively impacting upon outcomes for children and young people.

Family Help offers intensive and timely family support for families on the continuum from Targeted Early Help to Child in Need.

Family Help focuses on strong and consistent professional relationships, responding more quickly and intensively to families so that they get the right help at the right time. Building on workers' capacity to listen, understand and respond to trauma, and supporting children and families to build strength, resilience, confidence and parenting capacity. By unlocking the potential of family and community networks, we will support more children to stay safely at home, and when this is not possible, to remain with wider family and friends.

By supporting staff through regular reflective supervision, ensuring positive training and career pathways, staff embrace this more intensive way of working and remain in post longer, providing our families with the professional consistency they need, want and deserve.

Come and join us!

We have a Senior Practitioner vacancy in Hinckley and Bosworth, who will support the Team Manager in ensuring that a high-quality Child in Need service is provided for children and their families.

An enhanced DBS check is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

About You

We want a creative and supportive worker who will provide intensive and focused support to families in their homes. Developing effective relationships and using strengths-based and trauma-informed approaches will help to motivate and encourage behaviour change, leading to positive differences in children's lives.

• Degree in Social Work approved by the Social Work England (SWE) or equivalent social work qualification, ie Certificate of Qualification in Social Work or Diploma in Social Work. The worker must also be registered with Social Work England.
• Experienced level 3 social worker in a children's social work team.
• Experience of working in: access/duty/intake; children in need, child protection, care proceedings, safeguarding, and looked-after children work.
• Experience of undertaking Section 47 enquiries.
• Experience in supervising social work students.
• Experience in using performance indicators to monitor and improve performance.
• Able to analyse information to reach sound decisions, often under pressure, and take responsibility for their outcome and regular reporting to the Team manager.

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.

In addition, we expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstanceswhilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Katie Cooper - Team Manager

Telephone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the About You section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the About You section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.