Senior Support Worker Families Plus 5-18

South Gloucestershire Council; Tadworth; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A community-focused local authority is seeking talented social workers to join their team. The role involves assessing and supporting families with children, mentoring new staff, and collaborating across sectors. Ideal candidates will have a professional qualification in family work, strong communication skills, and resilience. The council offers flexibility, comprehensive training, and development opportunities in a supportive environment.

Benefits

Generous annual leave

Employee wellbeing support

Staff discounts

Qualifications

• Essential to hold or work towards a professional qualification in family work or related.
• Ability to communicate and engage with diverse individuals.
• Resilience to handle emotional complexity of family work.

Responsibilities

• Conduct whole family assessments and provide expert advice.
• Review and monitor help plans based on family needs.
• Support and mentor new team members.

Skills

Empathy

Good judgement

Resilience

Communication

Education

Professional qualification in family work or related field

Job description

Responsibilities

• Carrying out whole family assessments, you will provide advice and guidance to families, establishing plans where appropriate. You’ll ensure that our services are effective and supportive for families with children/young people predominately aged 5-18.
• Review and monitor early help plans, responding to changing needs and renegotiating where appropriate in accordance with safeguarding procedures.
• Provide support and mentoring to support workers, including those who are new to the team and those who need support in a specific area of practice. You may contribute to or lead on an area of specialism within the team or across the wider preventative services.
• Liaise and work with contacts from different sectors to ensure effective communication so knowledge and best practice is shared. Travel widely within the authority is required; you must have a current driving license and provide a car or have access to appropriate travel means.
• Business insurance will need to be added to your current car insurance policy.
• Due to the nature of this role, an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is a requirement of employment for this post.

Organisational context and commitments

We are a positive, proactive team with supportive management who listen to ideas and act on them. Following Covid, demand to support children and families with increasingly complex needs has risen. We are investing to deliver high ambitions for our children and young people.

We are expanding our frontline teams and have created 60 new roles to lower caseloads and enable genuinely child-centred support. We are making it easier for staff to work flexibly and increasing our support, development and reward offers. We are adopting clinical supervision and a systemic practice academy to strengthen relationship-based social work. We are building early intervention partnership capacity and increasing investment in evidence-based specialist expertise, including a in-house psychologist to support families. We are introducing initiatives such as the Mockingbird extended family model in fostering, a Caring Dads scheme and a new approach to domestic abuse. Our investments reflect a focus on providing an excellent, family-centred service with manageable workloads, flexible working, and strong career development opportunities.

Right now, we’re looking for talented, ambitious social workers to join us across our adult and children’s services. Our commitments include unmatched training, development and secondment opportunities; a proactive team with supportive management; commitment to excellence; realistic caseloads; flexible working opportunities; and a comprehensive Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) programme.

Location and benefits

South Gloucestershire offers a rich mix of countryside and urban culture and is within easy reach of the M4, M5 and M32, with convenient access to Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and south Wales.

Essential qualifications and skills

• It is essential you hold or are working towards a professional qualification (e.g., degree, NVQ 4 or equivalent) in family work, working with children or education.
• The ability to communicate and engage with a wide range of people; willingness to take time and be patient.
• Empathy, good judgement, and the ability to know when to support, empower, listen, challenge, or step back.
• Resilience to cope with the emotional complexity of working with families and potential knockbacks.

As part of our benefits package, you will receive generous annual leave (pro rata), employee wellbeing support, and access to staff discounts including eye tests, travel, shopping and leisure activities.

Inclusive culture and safeguarding

We recognise our diverse team and welcome applications from everyone. All staff are selected, promoted and developed on merit. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, ensuring staff have the right skills, knowledge and support to recognise and respond to potential abuse or neglect.

Our teams are making a real difference in the lives of people who live, work and learn here. We are building and shaping communities and investing in schools to help every child and young person achieve their full potential.