Exeter, Devon
Circa £33,000 + £700 p.a on call allowance
37 Hours - Fixed Term until June 2022, Full Time,

Giving children and young people the foundations they need to thrive.

The role

Action for Children Fostering South West Peninsula and Family Breaks seeks to meet the needs of the most vulnerable children and young people in society by the provision of safe, secure and successful foster placements including the provision of short breaks for children with additional needs.

We also offer the highest standard of care-providing carers with excellent training, supervision and support to achieve the best outcomes for the young people we look after. We strive to provide a good quality of care to young people, always ensuring they are the centre of our approach.

We are looking for an outstanding Fostering Social Worker who can support placements from the Devon/Somerset borders to Cornwall - so flexibility to travel across this cluster as and when needed is imperative for this role. You will also have the opportunity to assess applicants to foster. This role is fixed term until June 2022. During Covid times, we support agile / homeworking with the expectation to progress back into our office base when we can, with continued flexibility and a mix of home, office and travel to meet children and carers where they are.

You will make a difference by:

- Providing professional supervision and developmental support, including advice and guidance to fostering families and working with other professionals where appropriate. The role includes being part of an Out of Hours Telephone Support Service (through participation in rota) providing support 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year.

-Completing complex assessments of applicants to foster, making appropriate recommendations, with a view to ensure outcome focused achievements for children, young people and families.

-Supporting fostering families to look after children and young people who have experienced trauma and , ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to enable them to undertake this complex task within a family home environment, undertaking fostering reviews, providing high quality, analytical reports and presenting to Panel where appropriate, ensuring that children are receiving the best service possible.

-Being accountable for ensuring statutory compliance in respect of notifications, etc and meet regulatory body requirements at all times re registration.

-Enthusiasm for learning and development, for yourself as a reflective practitioner, and in support of our carer training - this is a learning organisation.

You will need:

- A Social Work qualification.

- Registration with Social Work England.

- To understand your role as a supervisor to carers and a team member.

-Ability to manage your work to deadlines and comply with regulatory requirements.

-Strong ethos of keeping the child at the centre.

-Strong commitment to work within our therapeutic framework to support the needs of children.

- Capacity to plan and prioritise, to use electronic records system and IT effectively including participating in virtual meetings and webinars.

-Experience of fostering is preferable.

-Access to a suitable means of transport to undertake the duties of the role required. Travel across the Peninsula area is essential.

The way we work

We work to make sure every child and young person has the love, support and opportunity they need to reach their potential. If you share the same vision, we want you to join our team. Have a look at our behaviours and values to understand more about the way we work here.

Rewards

We want our employees to feel valued and rewarded for the vital work they do. When you work with us, we'll recognise your efforts with generous annual leave, a comprehensive employer-matched pension scheme and a range of deals and discounts on our dedicated benefits portal. Find out more about our exclusive Action for Children benefits here.

For safe and happy childhoods

At Action for Children, we protect and support children and young people, providing practical and emotional care and support, ensuring their voices are heard, and campaigning to bring lasting improvements to their lives. Last year, we helped more than 387,000 children and families across the UK.

For any further questions about this role, please contact Lynsey.Munro@actionforchildren.org.uk in our recruitment team.

It's vital for our services to be able to recruit and support adopters / Foster carers from a diverse range of backgrounds to reflect the children who need families. We therefore actively seek to replicate that diversity in our staff, and we positively welcome the wide breadth of experience, knowledge and understanding that this will bring to our services.

Action for Children is passionate about promoting equality, valuing diversity and working inclusively. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons particularly people with Disabilities and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic applicants, as these groups are currently under-represented in our workforce.

We are committed to safer recruitment practices to protect our service users; therefore, all applicants are expected to have an understanding of and commitment to safeguarding best-practice.