We are recruiting for a Fostering Practice Manager to join our established North Fostering Service with Barnardo's for 12-month fixed term to cover maternity leave, commencing in September 2026. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a high performing and well-regarded team, supporting our commitment to delivering excellent outcomes for children, young people and foster families. 

This hybrid role offers flexibility, with the expectation that the successful candidate will work from our Leeds office twice a week as well as attend occasional meetings from the Northeast office. We are seeking a confident, motivated leader with passion for fostering and a drive to support continued growth and best practice within the service.

You will receive regular support and training and have opportunities to be involved in innovative practice. 

The service has recently had an Ofsted Inspection rated Good in all areas.

Click here for full job details.

Link Adoption & Family Support Service provides therapeutic support services for children, young people, and families across the UK. Much of our work is focused within adoption services, supporting adoptive families, children, and young people who have been adopted. We also provide therapeutic services to Special Guardians, kinship carers, and foster carers.

More recently, we have expanded our provision to support wider communities through partnerships with Barnardo's projects, health authorities, charities and voluntary sector organisations. Services are delivered both face-to-face and virtually across the UK.

We are seeking an experienced and passionate Therapeutic Social Worker to join our dynamic therapeutic services team.

This is an exciting opportunity for a qualified Social Worker to play a key role in coordinating therapeutic interventions that make a meaningful difference to the lives of children and families.

Working within a trauma-informed and attachment-focused service, you will manage referrals from initial enquiry through to case closure, ensuring children and families receive timely, appropriate support. You will work collaboratively  with therapists, commissioners, local authorities, and families to coordinate high-quality therapeutic interventions and help achieve positive outcomes.

Click here for full job details.

Barnardo's are seeking an experienced and commercially minded Assistant Director of Finance to provide strategic financial leadership and business partnering support across our Children's Services directorates. In this influential role, you will work closely with senior leaders to drive informed decision-making, manage financial performance, and support the delivery of services that improve the lives of children and young people across the UK.
 
As a key member of the finance leadership team, you will lead budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting and business planning activities, ensuring directors and managers have access to high-quality financial insight, analysis and modelling. You will also play a pivotal role in supporting bids, tenders and contract pricing, while identifying risks, opportunities and performance improvements across the organisation.
 
We are looking for a qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) with significant post-qualification experience, strong leadership capabilities, and a proven track record of influencing senior stakeholders in a large and complex environment. Experience of finance business partnering, financial modelling, governance, and leading high-performing teams is essential. Knowledge of the voluntary sector and government funding would be advantageous.
 
This is an excellent opportunity for a strategic finance professional who is passionate about making a difference, developing people, and driving continuous improvement within a purpose-led organisation. Barnardo's offers flexible working, a collaborative culture, and the opportunity to contribute to meaningful outcomes for children, families and communities.

Click here for full job details.

We're offering an exciting opportunity to become a Fostering Practice Manager within our dedicated Wales Fostering Team. Reporting directly to the Operations Manager, you will lead a team of skilled and passionate Supervising Social Workers, ensuring they deliver exceptional supervision, support, and training to foster parents and their families. Your leadership will help foster parents provide trauma-informed care that transforms the lives of children and young people.

In this pivotal role, you will:

• Lead and inspire your team to meet evolving service demands through high-quality supervision and adherence to fostering regulations in Wales.
• Support recruitment and retention of foster carers, contributing to strategic development and service improvement.
• Collaborate with external partners, including local authorities, health and education professionals, and child welfare organisations, to ensure holistic care for children and families.

We're looking for a driven individual with substantial supervisory experience in social care, ready to take the next step in their career. Whether you're an experienced Team Manager, Deputy Manager, or a seasoned leader seeking a fresh challenge, this role offers a platform to share your expertise and make a lasting impact.

You'll be part of a supportive and knowledgeable team, with access to coaching, mentoring, and leadership development from the Operations Manager, Assistant Head of Business, and wider service colleagues.

Click here for full job details.

Location: Adoption Midlands, East & West
​
Salary: £37,156 - £42,244

Contract type: Permanent, Full-Time

Closing Date: 12 July 2026

Barnardo's Adoption Midlands and South West has an exciting vacancy for a Social Worker to join its Service covering work predominantly in the Midlands, East & West.  You will be joining an experienced and stable staff group who embrace working in a creative, open and transparent manner with adopters, to provide children with permanence in a family who understand the lifelong nature of adoption and the impact of issues such as developmental trauma, attachment and neuroscience.

As a Social Worker you have the chance to make a real difference in the lives of Children, Young People and Families by:

• Recruiting, assessing and approving a diverse range of adoptive families to meet the needs of waiting children
• Matching the needs of children nationwide with the skills of appropriate adopters
• Ensuring all adopters have access to excellent training, guidance and support when they require it, including managing ongoing contact with birth family
• Working directly with adoptive families promoting a trauma informed approach and helping build and maintain family relationships
• Being part of Barnardo's undertaking to children, young people and adopters to continuously learn and improve

​
If you have a passion and drive to make a positive difference to children and adopters we would like to hear from you.

Click here for full job details

Join Barnardo's North England Fostering Service as a Supervising Social Worker (Fostering).

Barnardo's is one of the UK's leading children's charities, and our North England Fostering Service has recently been rated ‘Good' by Ofsted.

We are committed to providing safe, nurturing, and supportive homes for children and young people. We are now looking for a passionate and skilled Supervising Social Worker to join our committed team.

Our North England service covers Yorkshire, Humber, and the North East of England.  This role will mainly cover the North East, with expectations of traveling to North Yorkshire on occasions.

About the Role
This exciting opportunity has arisen following an internal promotion.

As a Supervising Social Worker, you will play a vital role in supporting foster carers to deliver high-quality care.

Key responsibilities include:

• Managing a protected caseload with access to innovative social work training
• Supervising, supporting, and developing foster carers
• Undertaking assessments of prospective foster carers
• Contributing to the matching process and foster home stability
• Working collaboratively with children, families, carers and professionals
• Maintaining accurate and timely records in line with regulatory standards
• Delivering training to foster carers
• Following Induction period participating in the out-of-hours rota (with additional payment)

Click here for full job details.

Leading children's charities have advised that recent government investment must be used to rebalance children's services towards early support, as new analysis shows the scale of financial pressure facing councils in England in responding to families in crisis.

Poverty and deprivation, housing and homelessness, and the unmet mental health needs of children, young people and parents are all factors contributing to the scale of demand in local communities. 

A new report by economic think-tank PBE, commissioned by The Children’s Services Funding Alliance (Action for Children, Barnardo’s, National Children’s Bureau, NSPCC, and The Children’s Society), shows local authorities in England spent a record £14.7 billion on children’s services in 2024/25.  

The report provides an important baseline for judging whether new government funding commitments succeed in rebalancing the system over the next three years. While the increased investment is a major opportunity, this new analysis shows that children’s services are entering this period under intense pressure. 

The analysis finds spending on early help services fell by 40% between 2011 and 2025, with more than 80% of children’s services budgets consumed by late intervention such as children entering care and other acute services. The charities warn this has created a system increasingly forced to respond to crisis rather than prevent it. 

The number of children in care has risen by 25% since 2011 to 82,000, far outstripping child population growth in the UK at only 7%. At the same time, the average annual cost of supporting a child in care has climbed to more than £100,000, up from £77,000 just five years ago, primarily driven by a combination of rising numbers of children in local authority care, increases in the complexity of children’s needs and escalating costs of care placements. 

Click here to read the full article.

​After nearly 20 years, a new director is taking over at the country’s leading children’s charity. Michele Janes, who is already the director of Barnardo’s in Northern Ireland, will now also take over as director of the charity in Scotland. She takes over from Martin Crewe, who has led the work of Barnardo’s in Scotland since 2007, and is retiring later this month.

Michele said: “It’s a great privilege for me to have this opportunity to work with another group of amazing colleagues, volunteers and young people and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Martin for his tireless work in Scotland for Barnardo’s over the course of the past two decades.

“I started my journey into social work in Edinburgh where I lived and worked before moving back to Belfast. I’ve worked in local authority social work, child protection, youth justice and across the statutory sector, finally settling at Barnardo’s Northern Ireland. I’m passionate about children’s rights and am relishing the opportunity to continue that work in Scotland.”

Martin Crewe, the outgoing director, said: “I am delighted to be handing over the management and oversight of Barnardo’s Scotland to Michele Janes. She is a trusted colleague who worked in Scotland for many years and has a deep understanding of the unique challenges we are facing to deliver The Promise and tackle child poverty. I know she will be highly committed to ensure that we keep on delivering for Scotland’s most disadvantaged children and young people.”​

Click here to read the full article.

As a Project Worker, you will play a vital role in supporting foster carers to provide high-quality care. You will:

• Be responsible for overseeing foster carer training
• Oversee foster carer support groups
• Complete unannounced visits to foster carers and children
• Complete direct work with children and young people
• Plan and co-ordinate participation events in the service
• Play a vital role in communicating with carers via online platforms including padlet 

What We're Looking For
 
We're seeking someone who is:

• Skilled in building strong, supportive relationships.
• Committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
• Able to work to deadlines, has strong IT skills and is organised.
• Able to work collaboratively.
• Able to accurately and clearly record case notes in a timely manner.

Click here for full job details.