Directorate:  Children and Family Services

Section:  Children’s Social Care

Grade:  Level 12 (Senior Social Worker)

Hours:  18.5 hours per week 

Salary:  £21,201-£22,720

This advert is open to both internal and external applicants

You will be required to undertake a range of tasks in relation to the Adoption System, as allocated by the Adoption Team Manager.

Key Accountabilities include:

1) To undertake a range of tasks in relation to Adoption Assessment, as allocated by the adoption Team Manager. This includes holding and managing a full caseload, prioritising all work in accordance with appropriate legislation, regulations, guidance, policies, procedures, standing orders and budgets.

2) To recruit, prepare, assess and train prospective adoptive parents, including non-agency adoptions. This practice should be undertaken in accordance with appropriate legislation, regulations, guidance, policies and procedures. This includes undertaking direct and group work with children and families

3) Through a child-centred approach, match Looked After Children with prospective adoptive parents

 4) Provide high quality and timely assessments and reports in the agreed format. This includes preparing assessments and reports for Court Proceedings, Child Protection Case Conferences, Statutory Reviews and any other forum as directed by the Team Manager

 5) Maintaining client records (electronic and paper) in line with policies, procedures and guidance of the Together4Children Regional Permanency Arrangement

6)  Participating in regular supervision or consultation with the Team Manager, ensuring that they are always made aware of significant issues in respect of Adopters, Children and Families

7) Supervising and supporting the professional development of members of the team, including social work students and non-social work qualified staff on the team when required.
 8) Seek to work in Partnership with colleagues across the Together4Children Regional Permanency Arrangement, within individual Local Authorities and outside partners/agencies in order to achieve identified outcomes for vulnerable children in their service area

9)  Participate in the formulation of new initiatives, and policy across the Together4Children Regional Permanency Arrangement or within Stoke on Trent locality.  

About Together4Children: 

4 Local Authorities, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council have come together in an innovative and forward-thinking Partnership.

We are working together to improve outcomes for those children who enter care and are not able to return to their families of origin. We aim to ensure that our children achieve emotional, physical and legal permanence; growing up in loving homes with adults who provide them with a strong sense of security, continuity, commitment and identity.

Together4Children operates through a hub and spoke model enabling Local Authorities to benefit from core central functions and networked regional delivery, whilst retaining direct service delivery functions within their own borders. This ensures the Partnership reflects the local context, adapted to meet the needs of local children and families, and maintains clear links to local Children & Families Services.

The Together4Children Partnership provides the Regional Adoption Agency for the partner Local Authorities. By working together, we aim to:

• Make best use of our collective resources to recruit, assess and support prospective adopters and foster carers across the region.
• Improve the quality and speed of matching for children through better planning and by having a wider choice of families.
• Provide high quality support to children and their families delivered through a combination of direct provision and effective Partnerships.
• Provide all children and their families with the right support at the right time through a consistent permanency support offer available across the region.
• Respond to the regulatory requirements in respect of Adoption (including Non-Agency Adoptions and Intercountry Adoption).  

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and we expect all our employees and volunteers to share this commitment.  This position is exempt under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the successful applicant will be subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

For these roles you must

• Be a qualified Social Worker with significant experience 
• You will have expansive knowledge of relevant childcare legislation, including a clear understanding of ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’.
•  An ability to build effective relationships with children, young people, and families.  

Amongst the benefits we offer are:

• Up to 40 days holiday (including 8 days bank holidays)
• Option to buy extra annual leave
• Flexible working hours
• Hybrid working
• Relocation allowance to £8,000 subject to policy
• Manageable caseloads
• High quality reflective supervision
• Health and wellbeing support
• Access to staff equality and diversity networks  

Please also see the Job Pack attached to this advert.

Additional Information

Stoke-on-Trent City Council values the diversity of its community and aims to have a workforce that reflects this – we therefore encourage applications from all sections of our community. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees – a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed together.

Please note that if an employee who is currently at risk of redundancy within the organisation applies for this vacancy their application will receive priority.  If this happens you will be advised accordingly.

To Apply

please visit our website https://webrecruitment.stoke.gov.uk/wrl/ If you have any queries or want an application form in another format, please email recruitment@stoke.gov.uk or call us on 01782 238189.