Advanced Social Worker, Children We Look After Team

About Us

We implemented the Family Safeguarding Model in 2022, a new multi-disciplinary approach that supports a whole-system change to child protection for children up to adolescence, focusing on supporting the needs of children and adults so that children can safely remain within their families.  This is a great opportunity to join us now and be part of this pioneering work as we continue to learn from multi agency family work and support more families to look after their children in their families and wider communities.

In addition, we have an established and growing ASYE programme, linked to our Social Care & Leadership Academy, offering mentoring support, fostering a culture of learning and challenge, manageable caseloads and good quality supervision, as we commit and invest in growing our own talent, as well as our experienced social workers.

About the role

The team for Children we Look After work with children between the ages of 0-16.  We support children who are remaining in foster care and those whose plan is adoption. 

We are looking for an Advanced Social Worker who has worked with Looked After Children or Care Experienced Young People. You will love working to ensure that children have stability by supporting them in their homes, enabling them to learn about becoming young adults and ensuring that they are equipped with the skills they need to have successful adult lives. You will enjoy direct work and have a toolkit you are keen to add to with our support.  We are passionate about supporting our children and young people to thrive and we go the extra mile in our Corporate Parenting Service.

You will carry a complex workload, and there is the opportunity to take on social work students and complete PEPS qualifications.  

Advanced Social Workers are highly skilled in their field of social work, are routinely involved in supervision or oversight of others, complex practice and decision-making and learning and development. They ensure the integration of professional knowledge, the perspectives of people using services and research evidence routinely in their practice and promote this with others.  There is an expectation that you would offer mentoring within the service, and support the management team.

This is a dynamic role and we need creative and kind social work practitioners to ensure our children who we look after are cared for, attend regular education and are supported into independence when they are ready.

There are lots of opportunities to build meaningful relationships with young people, their carers, families and other professionals who will share your passion for doing all you can to ensure our young people are looked after.

We are working hard to keep those children who need to live locally, in our local area.  We do have some children living outside of Swindon, and we are committed to these children receiving just as good a service as those who remain in Swindon.

In their own words, Children in care consistently tell us what makes a good social worker is someone that:

• “Actually listen to us!”
• “Does what they said they would do”
• “Tells me what’s happening when it’s happening”

This is just a small example of the qualities that young people expect in an ideal social worker. You can view the full skills and values on our Ideal Social Worker poster here

About You

Your aspirations should be limitless and you will be as determined and passionate about Children’s Services as we are. As a local authority, we continuously drive forward improvements in our services. We want our Social Workers to be part of our transformation, contribute to improving the safeguarding of our children, and we will make sure you have the full support network and training to do it.

You will require a Social Work qualification and be registered with Social Work England.  This is an advanced role so you should have a range of post qualifying experience.  Our service is based in Swindon town centre, we embrace a hybrid working model with an expectation of social workers spending a minimum of three days in the office.  We have children who live outside of Swindon, and therefore this role will involve travel including during evenings, mostly this will be planned, however there will also be unplanned visits out of area.  We are just as responsive to our children out of area as we are to our children living locally.  

Our teams are ambitious and proactive and we are looking for a social worker who will share that ambition and be a part of our journey.

Candidates must be fluent in the English language (as a requirement of Part 7 of the Immigration Act – for the effective performance of a customer-facing role).

Our commitment to your development

We are dedicated to ensuring that you can progress your continued professional development and access training and learning opportunities linked to the BASW competencies for career progression.

We have an established Social Work & Leadership Academy. The Academy aims to celebrate the best in professional practice in Social Work and Social Care Leadership. The Academy represents an opportunity for us to demonstrate how we support, develop and value the professional disciplines in Social Work and Social Care through a targeted framework of career development and learning opportunities. 

Your next package

• Relocation allowance of up to £8,000 (eligibility criteria applies)
• Competitive salaries
• Free car parking at our central Swindon campus and easy commuter links to many locations

As an inclusive employer, we welcome applications from a diverse range of communities, and in particular disabled people and people from ethnic minorities. Read our statement of commitment to equality & inclusion.

Please see our Rewards and Benefits offer for more details.

As an employee, you will receive a diverse and exciting environment in which to work, encouraging creativity and innovation whilst recognising the need to support ongoing personal development and a flexible work life balance.

For Swindon to thrive in the future, we need to lay the foundations now. It’s why our regeneration and transformation programmes are already underway. So, you’ll be joining us at an exciting time on our journey. We’ll look to you to share your knowledge, influence decisions and drive real, positive change. With your contributions, we’ll achieve our vision of a prosperous, re-vitalised Swindon together. And you’ll be proud to say it was made better with you.

Please see our Vision and Values page for more details

Your next steps

Read the role profile and select the Apply button where you will be redirected to the Swindon Borough Council website to complete our online application process. Clicking the ‘Apply’ button on this job website is not an application, you must register on the Swindon Borough Council website in order to be considered for the role.

For further information about the role please contact CLA Team Manager, Michelle Freeman, email mfreeman@swindon.gov.uk or call 01793 465012.

If you are experiencing technical issues submitting your application please email resourcing@swindon.gov.uk

We will be interviewing successful candidates throughout the campaign and reserve the right to close early, therefore early applications are encouraged.