Social Worker

Southampton City Council; Southampton; On-site; GBP 43,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Excellent local government pension

Flexible working options

Generous holidays 25–31 days

Training and development

Health and wellbeing support

Armed Forces Covenant veteran‑friendly

Job summary

Southampton City Council invites applications for Social Worker roles within the Pathways Through Care Team. You will support looked after children in foster, residential, or semi‑independent settings, focusing on permanence, reunification, and trauma‑informed practice.

The team emphasises reflective practice and cross‑agency collaboration to secure stable, loving placements. You will need a Diploma or Degree in social work and registration with Social Work England.

Qualifications

• Diploma or Degree in social work and registration with Social Work England.
• Experience in statutory social work with Looked After Children preferred.
• Ability to build relationships with children, families and partners.

Responsibilities

• Support Children in Care in foster, residential, or semi‑independent settings.
• Assist in preparing young people for independence and care leavers.
• Engage in reunification work and ensure trauma‑informed practice across cases.
• Collaborate with a multi‑agency team to secure stable, loving placements.

Skills

Communication skills

Relationship building

Safeguarding

Reflective practice

Education

Diploma or Degree in social work

Job description

We are the difference for Children in Care and Care Leavers.

Social Worker Opportunities in Southampton

Southampton City Council, Pathways Through Care Team is a service passionate and striving to achieve the best outcomes for our children we care for. Building relationships that enable our children to feel and know that they are held in mind is important to us.

Working closely with partnership agencies to provide high challenge and high support, building strong relationships between practitioners and their families, enabling systemic and reflective work with our children and their networks alongside these strong relationships is also a priority.

After service improvement activity and with meaning and purpose to reduce the caseloads of social workers to enable and provide greater more in-depth support to our children we are now recruiting to more social worker positions than we have ever had before in our service. It is through this recognition and strive to improve quality and enhanced support to our children in care and I equal measure preserve the welfare of our staff that openings have become available. These positions offer strong developmental opportunities for social workers who thrive on helping children be the best they can be. The vacancies within this part of the service will be your opportunity to build meaningful and influential relationships with the children we care for and help give you the sense of being able to make the difference. Our service offers strong and resilient practitioners the ground in which you are able to implement the real reasons you came into social work.

In June 2023, Ofsted saw strong evidence that: “The experiences and progress of children in care are good. Improvements to the quality of support provided to children in care have accelerated recently. Careful and successful workforce recruitment, a comprehensive strategy to improve children’s placement stability and an impressive level of meaningful engagement by senior leaders with children in care all provide a firm foundation for further improvements”.

Whilst permanence is at the forefront for all of our Children In Care, there is a robust review mechanism to ensure that we are providing stability to children and always achieving the right permanence for them. Family is important, and alongside ensuring permanence whilst in our care is the ongoing focus for us to ensure that we have the right plan for your children and that we promote identity and sense of belonging wherever possible. Whilst making strong and memorable relationships, this service also gives creative and restorative practitioners other opportunities to make the difference and to utilise their strong assessment skills in working with birth families to always consider whether the right permanence is in place for our children. There are strong reunification drivers that help support children and young people to recognise their potential and make stronger links with immediate and extended family members as well as significant others in their lives.

Southampton are strongly invested in development of their staff and a proposed service restructure focuses on gradient development with senior social workers in post and assistant team manager posts to enable staff progression should they wish to. The services enjoys a good partnership with our practice development team and our fostering service which allows us to invest in bespoke training packages for our staff to enhance service delivery to our children.

The Service:

The two Children In Care Teams supports children and young people who are looked after in foster care, cared for by connected carers or family, and specialist care which includes residential or semi-independent provisions.

Within the same service are managers who support Personal Advisors and our care leavers. We share the same office space and the relationship between the two service areas is interactive and enables the journey to independence to be streamlined and young person focused. Young people ageing towards their 18th birthday are allocated Personal Advisors and there is strong focus on joint working in the last 12 to 18 months of a young persons time in our care.

The service benefits from a permanent management team who have a wide range of experience from different service areas as well as two service leads who are visible and approachable. There are 6 teams within the one service – 2 of which are for young people who are care experienced, 1 team has been recently created enabling more specialisms of working with children who are unaccompanied in the UK and two teams with respective managers where they support social workers who work with our children in care under the age of 18. The Staying Connected team is a small group of staff – Personal Advisors and a Manager who support young people in our supported properties and our care leavers.

The service prides itself on having a cohesive and friendly feel who offer support to team members. Our service is child focussed and strive for each child or young person to be the best person they can be.

The Role:

A social worker appointed to one of the roles will spend their time supporting Children in Care who live in fostering, residential or semi-independent homes. They will need to remain focused and open to the children and young peoples identity and opportunity reunification home to their families, in addition to preparing young people to independence prior to them becoming care leavers. This role in social work is an exciting and favoured opportunity to support children and young people in their plans for permanence and to prepare them for young adulthood whilst building strong and positive relationships with young people.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for Social Workers who are reflective and assured in their own practice and ideally would have had experience of statutory social work with Looked After Children.You will be able to deliver a service that is centred on the child or young person, with a clear understanding and a good knowledge of relevant legislation and current practice for Looked After Children as well as clear understanding of safeguarding issues.

You will build relationships through regular visits, assessments and care planning. You will nurture and develop meaningful relationships with children; gain and interpret their wishes, and advocate and support them to reach their full potential.

We want to continually improve and show our children that we are aspirational for them and what they can achieve in their relationships, communities, education, training, and life’s big adventures.

The work is varied and challenging, and there is a strong team approach ensuring good support for the successful applicant.

There may be the opportunity to specialise with our increasing support and allocation of Unaccompanied Asylum seeking children. This is a new strand to our service, which is being fully embraced and offers further developmental opportunities on top of the training and focus on learning that is offered service wide.

Life story work, the narrative of the child and ensuring we work from a strengthening families base and of equal measure being trauma informed in our support to our children is a necessity.

You will have a Diploma or Degree in social work and be registered with Social Work England.

Please refer to the attached job description for the essential and desirable elements to apply for these roles.

Rewards:

• As Ofsted has stated in our inspection in June 2023 where we achieved a Good grading: ‘Practitioners are supported by energetic and responsive frontline managers who maintain clear, confident and close oversight of children’s progress’. You will be provided with regular good quality 1-1 case and personal supervision that align to restorative principles.
• Laptop and mobile phone will be provided to support with work.
• Robust induction period and personal development plan that meets your training and development needs. You will have membership to Research in Practice as well as access to an internal resource library.
• Ongoing training is important to us and professional development.
• Opportunities are also offered to flexible working arrangements. The 9 day fortnight is offered.
• Paid leave (up to 34 days excluding bank holidays dependent on length of service) and flexible arrangements).
• Discounted rail fares, paid parking and access to the Councils bicycle loan scheme.
• Opportunities to engage in work-based activities well- being and be recognised for the work that you do through our employment awards and recognition schemes

Our Location:

You will be based within Southampton city centre in the Civic Centre, a historical building within easy reach of a range of colleagues also based in the building.Some flexible/remote/home working is available.

Our Organisation:

Southampton City Council is a unitary authority, as such you will have access to responsive leadership which is supportive at all management levels.

We are committed to the development of all our staff, whilst working in a highly supportive and highly challenging culture. All of which is at the ethos of our ambition to become a child friendly city.

What we can offer you

Salary: The salary band for this role is £43,150 - £47,664 per annum. The starting salary is £43,150 with annual progression through the salary bands.

Here at SCC we have a range of different benefits, a few examples can be found below.

• Excellent local government pension with 15.2% employer contribution
• Death in service benefit of x3 salary, and optional salary sacrifice shared cost AVC (additional voluntary contribution)
• Generous holiday 25–31 days, based on role and service
• Flexible working options (role-dependent)
• Family-friendly policies - Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Shared/Unpaid Parental Leave, Time off for Dependents
• Training and development, including coaching and mentoring
• Health and wellbeing support - Employee Assistance Programme, Menopause Pledge, Mental Health First Aiders and access to a variety of staff networks
• Veteran-friendly employer with the Armed Forces Covenant
• Retail discounts and savings through the Southampton City Council benefits platform
• Discounted memberships at local sports and fitness centres
• Sustainable travel benefits - low emission car scheme, cycle to work, season ticket loans
• Employee volunteering scheme with 2 paid days leave to volunteer

For further information on our benefits package please visit:

Employee benefits (southampton.gov.uk)

Additional information:

• This post requires an Enhanced DBS check.
• A social work qualification and registration with Social work England is essential.
• 37 hours per week.

Contact details for informal discussion:

For further information and details regarding the position please contact Service Lead, Ellie Steel at [e-mail] or Team Manager, Alison Featherbe at [e-mail]

Recruitment contact details:

Email: [e-mail] Tel: [phone]