Experienced Social Worker, Children We Look After

at  Swindon Borough Council

Here in Swindon we have a clear vision and plans to reduce the need for Children to come into our care with our new adolescent offer and edge of care work and we are continually working as a partnership to ensure our children are safe.
We’re making a real difference to the lives of the children and families we work with in Swindon.

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 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 experienced 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).

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 some whose plan is adoption. We are focused on the possibility of children returning to live with family or be reunified with parents where that is the right plan for them.
We are looking for an Experienced 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.
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