CHILD PROTECTION CHAIR

Date: 6 Aug 2025
Job Location:Gloucester

This is a Gloucestershire County Council job.

• Job Title: Child Protection Chair
• Job Location: Countywide Service covering Gloucestershire.
• Salary: £52,413 - £54,495 per annum
• Hours per Week: 37.00
• Contract Type: Fixed Term
• Duration: One year
• Closing Date: 24/08/2025
• Job Requisition Number: 12007
• This post is open to job share

We are currently looking to recruit a Child Protection Chair to our dedicated Child Protection Conference team.

ABOUT THE ROLE

This is a very exciting time for Gloucestershire and for the Child Protection Conferencing team, as we focus on our journey to Outstanding and continue to embed systemic practice in our work with children and families. We are offering the opportunity to join a strong, stable team where you will find colleagues with expertise in safeguarding children and young people. There is good supportive management for all team members and a wider recognition of the importance of the role of a Child Protection Chair across Children’s Services. You will be working directly and innovatively with children and their families to make positive changes in a timely way, that will make a real difference to their lives and outcomes.
Child Protection Chairs in Gloucestershire can have difficult conversations, which challenge practice of professionals, for families and young people. We ensure the absolute best for children and implementing our statutory and regulatory obligations, while ensuring that children at risk of significant harm in Gloucestershire receive the best practice we can give. The voice of the child or young person is at the centre of all of that we do, and we are committed to ensuring their parents or carers feel respected and are supported to work together with professionals to reduce risk of harm.
For the past two years, the remit of the Child Protection Chair has been extended to include chairing My Safety Meetings for our children in care and care leavers who are found to be at risk of critical or significant harm. We provide oversight and quality assurance of My Safety Plans aiming to reduce risk in a youth focussed way. The Conference Chair’s role is to be further extended to include chairing of initial Child In Need meetings and providing oversight of those plans.
Good communication and leadership skills are essential as you use your skills to help children and their families to participate in meetings and achieve the best outcomes possible. Experience of chairing complex meetings is highly desirable. A relational, trauma informed approach to practice is essential.
You will have a pivotal role in quality assurance and the opportunity to contribute and make a difference to improving outcomes for children; recent developments will see a further extension to the Conference Chair’s role with increase quality assurance activity.
We pride ourselves on our supportive team culture and our willingness to embrace learning to improve our knowledge, practice, and outcomes for the families we are working with.
We are inviting applications from enthusiastic, child focused, aspirational, and competent professionals who are SWE registered, have a degree in social work (or equivalent), have a minimum of 5 years post qualifying experience with relevant management experience in social work. We expect you to possess excellent knowledge of relevant childcare legislation and procedures.

For an informal chat about this role, please contact Audrey Neath on Audrey.Neath@gloucestershire.gov.uk

• Please note, all our welcome payments and retention payments are non-contractual, pro-rata for part time staff and subject to National Insurance and tax deductions