Are you passionate about making a real difference in the lives of children and families?

Would you like to join an enthusiastic and diverse team where we believe that every child should have a safe, stable and loving home?

We are currently recruiting for a part time qualified social worker who has had experience of working with Looked After children or who has had significant experience in a child protection team. Ideally you will also have had some adoption experience although this is not a requirement.

About Us
We are an Ofsted outstanding provider covering the SE of England, London and East Anglia. We are committed to providing exceptional adoption services to ensure that children are offered security,stability and the opportunity to thrive. We aim to recruit, prepare, assess and support families who are prepared to go on that journey with a child and give them the future they deserve.

Some of the key responsibilities of the role include but are not limited to:

• Assessment of prospective adopters using the Adoption Assessment Framework (AAR)
• Attending multi-disciplinary meetings, Looked After Children Reviews and Panels.
• Offering regular supervision and support to adoptive families at different stages of the process.
• Ensuring timely recording and good communication with all professionals involved in the child's life.
• Contributing to pre and post approval training and therapeutic groupwork.

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Click here for full job details.

Our South West Fostering Team arranged for our young people to attend school over the Easter Holidays – but this wasn’t their regular school!

During the Easter Holidays, our Bristol Forest School event was attended by a small group of our young people. Throughout the day, both the young people and their carers took part in a variety of engaging activities. They learned about leaf printing, and created moulded clay medals and necklaces – as well as flags using leaf prints. They also enjoyed toasting marshmallows and eating wood-fired pizzas.

The group also took part in a treasure hunt, searching for items such as pinecones and stick-made arrows, and finished the day by participating in a range of different games. Some of the young people who attended had never met before, but left having made new friends. It was a great opportunity for both foster carers and young people to connect, socialise, and build new relationships.

Click here to read the full article.

The Role
St Christopher’s Fostering Service strives to achieve excellence in its support for foster carers and in gaining Outstanding Outcomes for Children and Young People. The independent Panel Vice Chair is crucial to St Christopher’s ability to achieve these aims – bringing experience of child care practice from outside the organisation, and the knowledge and skills to influence practice in the fostering service. As a priority we value diversity and in recruiting panel members we seek to ensure that we are representative of the communities we serve.

Job Purpose

• To assist panel chair in meetings, ensuring that all items of business are covered and that the panel operates in accordance with regulations and the policies and procedures of St Christopher’s Fostering. 
• To contribute to the development of the Panel agenda. 
• To identify any matters that have the potential to cause a conflict of interest, and to identify these at the earliest opportunity to the Panel Advisor, and where necessary to absent oneself from Panel for that/those item(s). 
• To prepare in advance of panel meetings, reading and evaluating papers carefully, identifying key issues and alerting the panel advisor if necessary to ensure, as far as possible, that a particular case is adequate for submission to Panel.
• To facilitate the active participation of all panel members in contributing to the panel’s consideration of cases and to the making of a clear and well-evidenced recommendation to the ADM, with the reasons for this. 
• To ensure that all those attending the meeting are treated with courtesy and respect. 
• To address diversity issues and to promote anti-discriminatory practice at all times. 
• To liaise with the Panel Advisor and Panel Manager as appropriate. 
• To ensure that clear and accurate minutes are written, which record any serious reservations which panel members may have. To be involved in checking and agreeing draft minutes with the Panel Advisor and Panel Deputy Chairs for circulation and agreement to all panel members, and ultimately for submission to the Agency Decision Maker. 
• To ensure through the Panel Advisor and Panel Manager, that managers in St Christopher’s are made aware of any issues of concern – in relation to individual cases and practice in general. To ensure that Panel recommendations on Quality matters are acted upon and their outcome recorded. 
• To annually review with the Panel Advisor the performance of all members of the central list. Between annual reviews, to take responsibility for acting upon any concerns as regards an individual panel member as and when the need arises. 
• To assist in the development and monitoring of policies and procedures, and in the course of their work, and where Panel recognises that new policies are required, to ensure that St Christopher’s management is aware of this. 
• To assist in the identification of training needs and the planning of training for panel members, and to attend such training. 
• To Safeguard the Confidentiality of all materials/discussions provided to the Panel Chair.  

Click here to read full job details.

Barnardo's Adoption North England have a fantastic opportunity for social workers to join our busy team on a permanent full-time basis.

Location of Post:  the successful candidate will be on a hybrid contract with an office base in the North East area, primarily working from home. They will be expected to work across the region of their office base but there will be a need to  work across the whole of the North of England depending on service need and attend monthly team meetings at the Leeds office, so travel across the whole region is essential.

We are looking for enthusiastic individuals who bring a passion for adoption work and for developing secure permanent homes for children.

Objectives of Service
As an Adoption Social Worker, you will work within a team of social workers, managers, and admin staff to recruit, train, assess and support prospective adopters in the North of England to provide safe, loving and nurturing families for children in need of permanent homes.  You will work with our adopters, the placing authorities and other professionals to maintain the best quality of service, support and outcomes for children.

Key tasks include:

• Assessment of prospective adopters and completion of assessment reports
• Attending relevant multi agency meetings such as CLA reviews, Placement Planning meetings and panels
• Timely recording and good communication with all professionals involved in placements 
• Training delivery in both Group and Individual settings

Click here for full job details.

On Wednesday 29 April, we brought together over 70 business representatives for an evening of networking and inspiring talks to launch our new partnerships programme.

The event, 'Partnering with Purpose’, was held at The Yard Coffee at Pivotal House, where we welcomed a mix of existing supporters and new business connections from across the region. It marked the introduction of our refreshed partnerships offer, including our Supporter Network, aimed at helping organisations combine meaningful social impact with their CSR and ESG ambitions.

Broadcaster Jake Humphrey, best known for his work across Premier League football, Formula One and The High Performance Podcast, delivered a talk on why social value is business critical, drawing on his experience to explore the role businesses can play in creating positive change.

Jake said: "I’m a firm believer in the power of charity, and I’ve seen first‑hand how ambitious Break is for the young people it supports. They're brilliant at tailoring partnerships with businesses like yours in line with what you can offer and want to achieve, resulting in real, meaningful impact. You really can help change lives.”

Click here to read the full article.

Have you ever wanted to make a difference to the lives of vulnerable Children and Young People?  The Together Trust Fostering Agency Supports foster families across the Northwest of England providing a caring stable home to children and young people who can’t live with their own family.

We have vacancies for 2 Vice Chairpersons of the Independent Fostering Panel. You will meet with the Chair of the panel and other panel members on a 4 to 6 weekly basis, and you will help make informed recommendations to the Agency Decision Maker on the suitability of new foster carers who wish to work with the Together Trust.

The Together Trust is one of the North West’s leading charities, offering individual care, support, and education to hundreds of children, young people, and adults each year. We are a not-for-profit charitable trust, so every penny goes back into benefiting the people that we support.

The Together Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the people that we support and expects all our staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

This role is an independent role sessional, and the relationship that you will have with the Together Trust will be as one of an independent sessional worker.

Click here for full job details.

Children of foster carers deserve to be celebrated. Not only do they share their homes, but they also share the love and attention of their caregiver when their family welcomes a young person into their lives.

To find out more about the role of children of foster carers, we spoke to three of our foster families. Meet Ruth, who fosters with her husband Derek, and their children Kirsti, Aimee and Jamie; Karen and Mike, who foster alongside their daughter Abi; and Lydia, who grew up in a fostering family and is now starting the process to become a foster carer herself.

The first conversation
Fostering can impact every family member. It's important to make any children in the home feel part of the decision. Ruth fosters with her husband Derek, and their children Kirsti, Aimee and Jamie. She said: “When Derek and I knew we wanted to foster, we immediately spoke to Aimee, Kirsti and Jamie. We’d made it clear from the start that if they had any issues or reasons why they wouldn’t want us to foster, then we wouldn’t. It had to be us agreeing to this journey as a family.”

Likewise, for Karen and Mike, their teenage daughter, Abi, was instrumental in them exploring fostering. Abi said: “I remember mum reading out an article about a child who needed a home to live in. I was intrigued because I couldn’t imagine what that would be like and I thought we might be able to help.”

Click here to read the full article.

Do you want to make a genuine difference in the lives of children, young people, and families? If so, we'd love to welcome you into our passionate and supportive Adoption Service here at Barnardo's. We have a wonderful opportunity for a committed and creative Social Worker to join our Pan‑Wales Adoption Team. Working with us means joining a compassionate group of professionals who believe deeply in the power of safe, loving, and lasting family relationships—and who will value your contribution every step of the way.
 
Why join Barnardo's?
At Barnardo's, we believe in quality over quantity. You'll hold a manageable caseload that allows you to truly focus on the children and families you're supporting. You'll benefit from regular supervision, peer support, emotional wellbeing resources and a workplace culture built on kindness, reflection, and professional growth.

We offer hybrid working across Wales, giving you the flexibility to organise your work in a way that supports both your priorities and your wellbeing. We pride ourselves on providing a friendly, safe and supportive environment for all our staff.
 
About the role
As a Social Worker within our Adoption Service, you will:

• Recruit, assess and train prospective and approved adoptive parents as part of our CIW‑registered service
• Provide thoughtful, tailored pre‑ and post‑placement support to adoptive families
• Offer training and therapeutic, relationship‑focused interventions that acknowledge the impact of trauma, loss and early adversity
• Work with hope, creativity and empathy as you help families build secure and lasting connections
• Contribute to the ongoing development of our service through reflective practice, learning and professional curiosity
• We are looking for someone who is enthusiastic, motivated, and passionate about achieving the very best outcomes for children. You'll be supported to work therapeutically and to grow your skills through ongoing development opportunities.

Click here for full job details.

We offer a blend of home and office-based working arrangements, to support a healthy work-life balance for all our staff. This will be a minimum of one day per week working based either at our North Tyneside or Middlesbrough office.

Hours: 18.75 hours per week covering Monday to Sunday

Please note we do not operate a performance related reward system or automatic incremental payments

As a Recruitment, Retention and Development Social Worker for Team Fostering you will play a vital role in supporting us to make those changes happen. 

Key responsibilities include:

• Working in partnership with the relevant managers to develop, facilitate and review training of prospective foster carers for the Northeast Region.
• Support, development, implementation and delivery of specialised recruitment campaigns.
• Acting as key point of contact for applicants in the process of assessment to become foster carers.
• Offering support, guidance and advice to independent social workers.
• Quality Assurance of Initial Visits and Form F Assessments.
• Identifying, addressing and resolving retention concerns to support the delivery of the Carer Recruitment and Retention Strategy.
• Maintaining oversight of changing trends in foster care recruitment and liaise with the Director of Business Operations to develop strategies that meet need and reflect changing landscape.

Click here for full job details.

TACT are proud to be a part of the National Year of Reading 2026, which aims to make lasting change to the reading habits of the nation and promote a love of reading in children and young people. Over the past three months, TACT’s dedicated Education Service have worked extremely hard to make this campaign engaging and exciting. This is the story so far…

To connect our fostering households to the campaign, we chose to send monthly internal newsletters called ‘Bookworm Bulletins’. These were key to informing our fostering families about upcoming activities, along with providing resources and recommendations.

Meet the author events
One of the highlights of the first three months of the campaign was the Meet the Author event with Nick Sharratt, illustrator of the famous Story of Tracy Beaker books. This was attended by 12 children and young people as well as their carers and some TACT staff members. The session was lively, engaging, and brought a great deal of joy to the children – who also had very thoughtful and enthusiastic questions which contributed to a fantastic atmosphere.

A foster carer who joined the session with a young person in their care immediately noticed a positive change: “He has loved learning to draw  and sessions like this have been incredible for his development and his confidence. He now loves drawing and is now proud of all his work”.  A particular highlight involved a young person who joined the event remotely from his hospital bed – and enjoyed it so much that their carer’s Supervising Social Worker has arranged online drawing classes for him while he remains in hospital.

Click here to read the full article.