Team Manager First Response Assessments

Are you ready to lead with purpose and make a real difference in children’s lives?

We’re looking for a passionate, confident, and experienced Social Work Team Manager to join our fast-paced Assessment Team — the frontline of safeguarding and protection for children and families in our OUTSTANDING authority.

This is your chance to step into a key leadership role where your decisions shape safer futures, drive excellent practice, and support a high-performing team of dedicated professionals.

You're a qualified social worker with a proven track record in child protection and frontline practice, confident in your judgment and driven by a strong ethical compass. You're ready to step into leadership—or build on existing management experience—with the tools to support, challenge, and develop a team to be their very best.

• SWE registration
• Strong knowledge of the Children Act, Working Together, and safeguarding frameworks
• The ability to balance risk, make decisions, and lead with clarity
• A commitment to putting the child’s voice at the centre of everything you do

• Be at the heart of decision-making that protects vulnerable children and families at the earliest point of contact
• Lead a dynamic, skilled team of social workers committed to high-quality, child-centred assessments
• Bring your leadership to life in a local authority that values innovation, learning, and outcomes.
• Work closely with partners to influence real, positive change across services
• Thrive in a supportive environment that offers structured supervision, strong leadership backing, and continuous development

• Leading the a smallteam of social workers in the Assessment Team, managing risk, and ensuring safe, timely decision-making. Our managers offer high support and high challenge to our social work colleagues so that we continually improve.
• Inspiring social workers through effective supervision, coaching, and development
• Overseeing quality assessments under Section 17 and Section 47 of the Children Act
• The work is fast paced , focused on delivering against our key performance measures whilst maintaining our focus on the child. There is a specific focus on chairing strategy discussions to engage other partner agencies in the child protection process, taking a leadership role and developing joint action plans to safeguard our most vulnerable children. Therefore, collaborating across agencies to deliver effective multi-agency safeguarding responses
• You will be accountable for decision making and implementing safeguarding processes, endorsing assessment outcomes, and ensuring that children have the right support and protection at the right time.
• You will be part of a wider team manager peer group providing mutual support working to an established rota for duty and allocation of work. You will have the support of an experienced service manager with regular supervision embedded in a monthly cycle.
• Driving service improvement, innovation, and accountability across your team
• Making a difference—every single day

• A competitive salary and generous annual leave
• Excellent professional development opportunities and leadership programmes
• Flexible working options and a hybrid work culture
• A supportive senior management team who listen and back you
• Access to employee wellbeing services
  , peer networks, and more

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

To apply for this post, you must be able to evidence in your application how you meet the following criteria:

• Social Work degree or equivalent, e.g. CQSW, DipSW (with specialism in children’s services), approved by Social Work England and evidence of continuing professional development.
• You will be a qualified social worker with extensive statutory experience focused on applying threshold and applying Child protection processes including public and private law, stepping into support and practice if needed.
• You will demonstrate your ability to support others including social workers, alternatively qualified…