Senior Social Workers - Children's - Family Support and Safeguarding

Want to find out more about practising with Newham? Join our Online Recruitment Event for qualified social workers:

SIGN UP FOR OUR ONLINE RECRUITMENT EVENT (22/01/2025) HERE

SENIOR SOCIAL WORKERS – CHILDREN’S

FAMILY SUPPORT AND SAFEGUARDING SERVICE

£55,574 - £58,607 (includes market supplement)

Hybrid role – Newham Dockside E16 2QU

Closing date: 27/01/2025 at 23:59*

*Please apply ASAP as we may interview shortlistable candidates before the closing date

Job description – Senior Social Worker

JOIN US AND HELP BUILD A FAIRER NEWHAM

We’re a vibrant, dynamic, culturally rich London Borough with a young population and limitless potential. We’re a challenging yet rewarding place for social work practice to flourish and we are steadfastly committed to our workforce being representative of the families that we work with. We are taking coordinated, meaningful and focused action to develop an inclusive culture because we believe this is at the heart of enabling diversity in all respects, including diversity of thought. We are taking positive actions to challenge all forms of discrimination and injustice to help make Newham a fairer and more equitable place for children and families to live, learn and thrive.

As part of our commitment to building a Fairer Newham we are reimagining the way that we serve the families that we support. We are realising positive change by combining our Assessment and Intervention social work services into our new Family Support and Safeguarding Service. We’re currently looking for experienced Senior Social Workers to join our team.

We understand that social work can be a challenging yet ultimately very rewarding profession that makes demands of you personally and professionally. In Newham we value your wellbeing and we aim to ensure that you have a better work/life balance through a remote working offer when you are not visiting children and families, a modern office space for when you’re on site, a flexible working policy where all requests are considered, and a clinical offer to support you to do your best work. 

ABOUT THE JOB

The Family Support and Safeguarding service enhances the family led, relational values that were already at the centre of our practice and will continue the evolution of our firmly embedded Circles of Support practice model. We’re keeping children at the heart of everything we do whilst improving the overall experience of the families, partners, and social workers in our sphere. We want to be at the forefront of evoking positive change in the sector and we’re looking for experienced, committed, relational social workers to join us and help us get there. Above all, we want to do the best for Newham’s children and families.

The FSS service consists of four services and sixteen teams, supporting families from first point of contact and assessment and throughout any subsequent longer term intervention (e.g. referral to partners, CP, CiN) until the best, safest outcome is for the child is attained. Two of these teams will work exclusively with children and families whose lives are influenced by disability or SEND to ensure that we retain the expertise necessary to support these families. Where proceedings are necessary court work is moved on to our Children in Care service.

Senior Social Workers in the FSS service are caseholding and will be on duty 1 week in 16; we hope this will be a welcome change for social workers who are used to busy assessment services, and a positive CPD opportunity for practitioners whose experience is mainly in longer term work. There will also be CPD opportunities for senior social workers to line manage and support less experienced colleagues, students, and NQSWs; bridging the gap between family facing practice and management whilst enhancing their CVs.

ABOUT YOU

We are looking for qualified, SWE registered Senior Social Workers with several years’ post qualifying experience within a statutory children’s social work service. It’s essential that applicants understand the value of working with families from first point of contact to completion and are enthusiastic about this way of working. We’re also keen to meet practitioners who value their own CPD, will make the most of our academy offer and are excited about the prospect of working with management to embed good practice and support colleagues at the early stages of their career.

We’re looking for conscientious, considerate and empathetic people, who are committed to working relationally with families whilst putting every child’s welfare, potential, and future at the heart of their work. Newham is committed to our workforce being representative of the families we work with, to enhance cultural competence and adjust our practice to suit the individuals we serve. We are looking for colleagues who share our values and are passionate about tackling disproportionality wherever they find it and building a Fairer Newham.

You will have a genuine interest in a restorative, relationship based practice model, drawing on systemic thinking to inform your approach to building effective relationships with children, families and communities. We’d love to hear from social workers who are keen on learning and growing with us over a number of years and as an employer we’ve been working hard to provide the development our practitioners need and want. Our Academy offer has been commended by Ofsted and we promoted 38 internal colleagues in children’s social care in 2024.

WHY WORK WITH US?

We’ve been working hard to make Newham a great place to practise social work.

• A commitment to addressing disproportionality wherever we find it.
• We’re a GOOD local authority focused on reaching excellence.
• We offer genuinely flexible/hybrid working as long as children and families are supported.
• Stability: 100% of senior management and 80% of Team Managers are now permanent.
• Our firmly established practice model, Circles of Support, was recently nominated for the prestigious MJ Award for Innovation in Children’s Services and allows systemic, restorative practice to flourish.
• Career progression is possible with Newham; within Children’s social work we promoted 30 internal colleagues in 2023 and 38 colleagues so far in 2024.
• Social Care Academy – our academy received significant praise from Ofsted and 50+ social workers have studied for systemic higher education with us since 2020.
• A competitive salary package that rivals capped agency pay.
• Oyster card/parking permit for business use.
• Wellbeing service, leisure and discount benefits
• Travel season ticket loan, cycle scheme, Local Authority pension.

TO APPLY

To apply please submit your CV and supporting statment through our online recruitment portal. 

Shortlisting decisions will be made based on requirements listed in the person spec in relation to the service advertised, as evidenced in each candidate's CV and supporting statement.

Closing date: 27/01/2025 at 23:59*

*Please apply ASAP as we may shortlist and interview candidates before this closing date*

Interviews: From early January

If you have any questions about the recruitment process or want to discuss joining Newham Childre