Children's Social Worker

We currently have a vacancy in our Children in Care and Care Leavers team, Stafford. We are looking for a social worker to support our children who are not able to live with their families without the local authorities involvement and welcome experienced or newly qualified social workers to apply.

For newly qualified social workers our ASYE programme has a great reputation because we’re committed to giving you the best start in your social work career by helping you develop your practice in a supported way!

Staffordshire has a well‑established ASYE programme that prides itself on providing our newly qualified social workers with strong support and opportunities to develop. We recognise that your first year of social work practice is about developing your confidence, skills, and knowledge. That’s why we offer monthly bespoke ASYE training sessions, with well‑established social work educators.

You’ll have a protected workload, and individual ASYE assessors who will regularly meet with you and your manager to review your support and development needs. You’ll also have protected study leave to develop your practice portfolio and opportunities to attend a range of training that will develop your social work practice knowledge.

Feedback from social workers who have completed our ASYE programme tells us:

• I appreciated the protected workload, and individual support.
• There was recognition that I was learning whilst practising.
• I felt Staffordshire recognised that I needed time to develop and consolidate my social work style and practice.
• There’s lots of training and support from individual teams and managers.

You’ll be:

• Working with children and their families from the point of the second child in care review or full care order being granted, until we support them to return home safely or up to their 18th birthday and they become young adults.
• Carrying out the key statutory duties within a children in care team supporting our children to flourish whilst in our care.
• Having a passion for supporting families to make positive changes so that they can be reunited as soon as possible along with supporting young people to gain valuable key life skills and positive enduring relationships.

In Staffordshire we want to improve the lives of all children and young people and we do this through our Restorative Practice framework. Our approach is underpinned by a set of beliefs, values and behaviours that focus on building and repairing relationships.

This relationship model uses a strength‑based approach which aims to work in partnership with children and their families. Working restoratively is widely accepted as an effective way of achieving better outcomes for families and in Staffordshire we are committed to using a range of methods and tools to achieve this. So that when you join us you’ll receive specific restorative practice training to enable and embed this way of working.

If you are in your first or second year in employment on programme with us we’ll ensure you get the best breadth of experience in your team.

You’ll:

• Have a good understanding of the impact of childhood experiences and be supporting young people to overcome and manage a range of challenges, helping them rebuild their family relationships.
• Be passionate about supporting families to be able to safely care for their children without our intervention.
• Be committed to developing young people’s key life skills through pathway planning, working in partnership with families and supporting them to build positive strong relationships and networks around them.

For newly qualified social workers to join our ASYE programme you’ll need to be:

• Expecting to become a Qualified Social Worker within the next nine months.
• Be registered with or on track to become registered with Social Work England (SWE) in the next nine months.
• Have a current UK driving licence and access to use a vehicle.

Please note if you do join us before you have qualified and received your Social Work England Registration, you will be paid £33,699 (SCP 22) until you qualify. At this point you will be…