As a Transition Worker, you will support care experienced young people aged 14-24 with significant transitions, by preparing them to move into independent living or supported accommodation. 

The transition to adulthood may be difficult, but through a range of interlinked interventions designed specifically to reduce their vulnerabilities and equip them with the resilience, skills/tools, you can help them to cope positively with their individual challenges. 

Where young people are moving on to live independently you will assist them to develop the necessary life skills to manage their own tenancy independently, and responsibly and to budget effectively.

How you’ll help to create brighter futures
You'll offer support and advice to our young people to overcome barriers that can include housing, homelessness, confidence and self-esteem issues, poor social skills, lack of qualifications and employment opportunities. You will also support young people with emotional wellbeing and provide resilient and nurturing support, even in challenging and difficult situations.

Key responsibilities of your role will be to:

• Manage a case load, whilst engaging and building trust with Young People across South Wales. 
• Link up with agencies so our young people feel safe and secure in their own home.
• Support young people to overcome their barriers to training, education or employment and support in preparation for a placement/job offer, open bank account, planning travel routes etc.
• Attending meetings with other key individuals involved in the care of a service user and completing relevant paperwork and reports.  

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A bit about the role  
You will be a senior leader with considerable experience in leading and managing children’s services either in Local Authorities or the Voluntary Sector. A strong communicator and creative thinker with a flair for innovation who is focused and passionate about changing the lives of children and their families. 

We have a unique opportunity for an Operational Director of Children's Services to provide leadership and management across England predominantly London and Leeds. This is an exciting and rewarding role with the opportunity to make a huge personal impact.  

Reporting to the National Director of England South, you will lead, develop, and manage a dedicated team of managers who develop and deliver a range of children's services across a specified area. You will work will commissioners and be responsive to legislation and policy change to identify areas for service development. You will be skilled in working across service areas to meet identified needs and develop new, sustainable services. 

England has ambitious plans to grow residential and criminal exploitation services whilst ensuring our existing service footprint remains strong and sustainable. The development and delivery of these services will be a key element of this role.

You will have responsibility for oversight of specific regulated services including holding responsibility for the quality and culture of the service. You will need a strong understanding and significant experience of both children’s homes regulations and criminal exploitation as part of this role.

This is an exciting opportunity for an inspirational leader who wants to make a difference to the lives of children and young people as part of an enthusiastic and ambitious England team. 

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At Action for Children, we focus on creating a feeling of family. Our fostering social workers are at the very heart of that. As a fostering agency with small caseloads, our fostering social workers have the capacity to provide a truly personalised level of support, guidance, and reassurance, to our fostering families. We get to know our foster carers as individuals, which allows us to offer a high standard in matching them with the right children and young people. The result is that we often see excellent outcomes achieved and a high level of stability offered to the young people in their care.

​As a fostering social worker, you will be responsible for providing vital training, conducting assessments on potential foster carers, reviews of approved foster carers, as well as being part of the on-call rota. 

You can be based from home but you must be prepared to travel across Northern Ireland to support the fostering families you care for. At Action for Children, you will be part of a team of experienced social workers, receive regular supervision, and access to further training. Apply now if you would you like to work with us and be part of our family. 

How you'll help to create brighter futures

As a Fostering Social Worker, you’ll be:

• Providing professional supervision and developmental support, including advice and guidance to fostering families and colleagues from other agencies where appropriate, including being part of an Out of Hours Service (through participation in rota) providing support 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year. 
• Completing complex assessments of foster carers, making appropriate recommendations.
• Supporting fostering families to look after children and young people who have experienced trauma and abuse.
• Accountable for ensuring statutory compliance in respect of notifications, etc and meet regulatory body requirements at all times.
• Coaching, mentoring, and teaching less experienced staff.
• Maintaining and develop effective working relationships with internal colleagues in the wider organisation and external agencies.
• Attending a range of regular meetings including, home visits for assessment and family support (including outside of office hours).
• Keeping abreast of changes in social work practice.

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This Christmas marks seven years of our charity Christmas appeal, Secret Santa.

The magic of Christmas begins in childhood. Carefully hanging stockings. Peeking at presents under the tree. But for many, Christmas is anything but magical.

For seven years, we've been asking people like you to support our charity Christmas appeal by becoming a Secret Santa and making a donation.

Every year, our supporters remind us of their incredible generosity. Thanks to you, we can continue to be there for vulnerable children and families across the UK.

To celebrate, we reflect on the Secret Santa milestones we've achieved over the years.

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Are you a Clinical Psychologist with a passion for working with children and young people in care, care leavers or those who have experienced trauma or attachment insecurity?  

Are you looking for an opportunity to join an enthusiastic, creative and innovative team, to shape service delivery, pursue specialist interests and influence system change.

This is an exciting opportunity to join our highly skilled team of Psychologists, Therapists, and Therapeutic Social Workers, commissioned by Derby City Council and Derby and Derbyshire ICB.    In this role you will join our clinical team, reporting to the Lead Psychologist, and contribute to the development and delivery of a specialist trauma and attachment service for Children in Care and Care Leavers through specialist assessment, formulation and intervention, clinical leadership and supervision. 
 
In addition, the role will involve supporting the development of therapeutic input to Action for Children residential homes, working alongside our Therapeutic Practitioners to provide assessment, formulation, training, whole team reflective practice and consultation to embed an approach to therapeutic care based on principles of PACE and trauma informed care. 

We are also developing our links with Adoption East Midlands, and there may be an opportunity to contribute to their multi-disciplinary team reflection group which brings together MDT colleagues together with Virtual School, and Educational Psychology services to discuss complex cases through a systemic lens, as well as the potential to offer consultations alongside their Occupational Therapist and/or Speech and Language Therapist and Therapeutic Social Workers. 

You will receive regular clinical supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and separate line management supervision from the clinical lead. You will have access to external training in models such as Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), Theraplay® and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and will be expected to keep abreast of the latest developments in the profession.

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Are you a strong communicator and creative thinker with a flair for innovation who is focused and passionate about changing the lives of children and their families? 

We have a unique opportunity for an Operational Director of Children's Services to provide leadership and management across Wales. This is an exciting and rewarding role with the opportunity to make a huge personal impact.  

Reporting to the National Director of Wales, you will lead, develop, and manage a dedicated team of managers who deliver a range of children's services across a specified area. You will work will commissioners and be responsive to legislation and policy change to identify areas for service development. You will be skilled in working across service areas to meet identified needs and develop new, sustainable services. 

Wales has ambitious plans to grow residential, criminal exploitation and mental health services whilst ensuring our existing service footprint remains strong and sustainable. 

A key part of this role involves undertaking the role of Responsible Individual for which you will need a ‘fit person’ interview with CIW. You will have responsibility for oversight of specific regulated services including holding responsibility for the quality and culture of the service. You will need a strong understanding of RISCA regulations as part of this role.

This is an exciting opportunity for an inspirational leader who wants to make a difference to the lives of children and young people as part of an enthusiastic and ambitious Wales team. 

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This winter, our Secret Santa TV advert is back on TV. Why? To ask for your help. We want to put the magic back into Christmas for vulnerable children.

The Action for Children Christmas TV ad will be running again this year, giving people around the country the chance to experience the magic of our Secret Santa Christmas appeal.

The story behind the Christmas ad
The advert features three of our campaign's characters – Nathan, Lucy and Tripti. Narrating the advert is Larry Lamb. He shares their individual stories as they come to life through Christmas cards displayed on a festive mantlepiece.

Nathan, Lucy and Tripti represent the 4.5 million children across the UK living in poverty. It’s easy to think that poverty happens elsewhere, but it’s affecting children in your community. For many, Christmas is just another day of empty cupboards, putting on an extra jumper to keep warm, and wondering why their friend got presents when they didn’t.

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We are looking for an outstanding Fostering Social Worker who can support carers 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.

Participation in an out-of-hours telephone support service for carers is an expectation of this role.

How you’ll create brighter futures

• Providing professional supervision and developmental support, including advice and guidance to fostering families and working with other professionals where appropriate.
• Completing complex assessments of applicants to foster, making appropriate recommendations, to ensure the best outcome for children, young people, and families.
• Ensuring the voices of young people are heard and shape our services;
• Striving to ensure our services are inclusive and celebrate diversity;
• Supporting fostering families to look after children and young people who have experienced trauma, 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 and meet regulatory body requirements regarding registration.
• Enthusiasm for learning and self-development, for yourself as a reflective practitioner, and in support of our carer training.

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Are you a strong communicator and creative thinker with a flair for innovation who is focused and passionate about changing the lives of children and their families? 

We have a unique opportunity for an Operational Director of Children's Services to provide leadership and management across Wales. This is an exciting and rewarding role with the opportunity to make a huge personal impact. 

Reporting to the National Director of Wales, you'll lead, develop and manage a dedicated team of managers who deliver a range of children's services across a specified area. 

Wales has ambitious plans to grow residential, fostering, criminal exploitation and mental health services whilst ensuring our existing service footprint remains strong and sustainable.

This is an exciting opportunity for an inspirational leader who wants to make a difference to the lives of children and young people as part of a passionate and ambitious Wales team.

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A Bit about the Service: 

Our three linked services, Fostering Southwest, Fostering Southwest Peninsula and Family Breaks Devon provide high quality foster families to vulnerable children and young people working closely with nearby Action for Children Services. 

We 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, always ensuring the young people are the centre of our approach.

A bit about the role:

We are looking for an outstanding Fostering Social Worker who can support placements in the Southwest of England, You will have a small case load of 3-4 families.

How you'll help to create brighter futures. 

• Providing professional supervision and developmental support, including advice and guidance to fostering families and working with other professionals where appropriate.
• Completing complex assessments of applicants to foster, making appropriate recommendations, to ensure the best outcome for children, young people, and families.
• Supporting fostering families to look after children and young people who have experienced trauma, 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 and meet regulatory body requirements regarding registration.
• Enthusiasm for learning and self-development, for yourself as a reflective practitioner, and in support of our carer training.

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