 Salary: up to £40,000 per annum including allowances Location: Waterlooville Contract: Permanent Hours: Full Time Closing: 13 April 2022 Are you looking for a Supervising Social Worker role with a difference? Are you ready for low caseloads, great benefits, and plenty of opportunities? How about continual training and progression?
Can you see yourself working with a well-established, growing, Nationwide charity, supervising and supporting Foster Carers to look after the children and young people in our care? Where do you fit in? You know how much hard work and dedication it takes to make a difference to the lives of children and young people. With low caseloads, you’ll have the time and resources to truly support our Foster Carers. You’ll promote the safe care and development of our foster children so that they can achieve their full potential. You’ll get involved in the recruitment, assessment, and training of prospective Foster Carers, as well as pursuing suitable placements. You’ll help a diverse range of people - reflective of the communities we work in, and will play a key part in a friendly, supportive charity where you’ll be rewarded for your hard work and results. What’s in it for you? In addition to a competitive salary, a very generous car allowance, and out of hours allowance, we offer a comprehensive benefits package, including:
What do you need to be successful? You’ll be degree qualified, registered and experienced in this field, with a full driving licence and up to date knowledge of all job relevant legislation - particularly Safeguarding and Foster Care IT Literate, ideally with a knowledge of the Charms database (although training can be provided), with accurate record keeping and admin skills You’ll be flexible, willing to learn, train and progress. You’ll promote our work and help to establish us as the local authority’s preferred and approved supplier Full details and application documents here  Location: North East Office
Package We are a progressive organisation who promote a friendly and supportive working environment, where you will be rewarded for your hard work and results. Salary up to £35,000 dependent on experience, 30 days Annual leave, 35-hour week (Monday – Friday 9.00am-5.00pm), 5% contributory pension, private health insurance, free parking. The role Our staff are an integral part of our success and we are seeking to recruit a permanent full time Supervising Social Worker. Based at our North East office in Bishop Auckland you will recruit, assess, and support our Foster Carers as well as make placements in response to referrals from Local Authorities. Our low caseload management system ensures that we achieve good outcomes for our children and maintain a high-quality service. Ideal candidates This is an exciting opportunity for a Social Worker with at least 2 years’ experience. Someone who can work flexibly as part of a busy team and wants the opportunity to provide a quality service to our children, young people and foster carers. How to apply Please see job description below for more details , you can apply by completing the application form below and sending it to: jobs@thecft.org.uk Full details and application documents here Member Job Opportunity: The Children's Family Trust - Registered Manager: South of England Region29/10/2021
 Location
Waterlooville / South Central. Package We are a progressive organisation who promote a friendly and supportive working environment, where you will be rewarded for your hard work and results. As well as a competitive annual salary (up to £58,000 depending on experience), very generous car allowance (£6000 pa) and out of hours allowance (£1200 pa) we offer a comprehensive benefits package, The role We are looking for an enthusiastic and passionate Registered Manager to join our experienced and successful team, someone who is reflective and creative in practice. Working together with all stakeholders you will strive to ensure that children and young people in our care reach their full potential. *we are currently trialing hybrid working until the end of the year 3 days office based and 2 days homebased. Ideal candidates The ideal candidate for this position will ‘lead from the front’ and possess vast fostering experience at management level. As the Registered Manager you will be expected to lead and motivate an existing team in achieving the best possible outcomes for our children and young people. Having a commitment to continuous improvement and the ability to develop relationships with our Local Authority customers is essential as well as some experience of managing budgets. How to apply Please see the job description below for more details.You can apply by completing the application form below and sending it to: jobs@thecft.org.uk Full details and application documents here  Location: UK Wide
Package We are a progressive organisation who promote a friendly and supportive working environment, where you will be rewarded for your hard work and results. Salary up to £70,000 dependent on experience, 30 days Annual leave, 35-hour week (Monday – Friday 9.00am-5.00pm), 5% contributory pension, private health insurance, free parking. The role We are seeking an experienced Head of Operations to join our Head Office team in Bromsgrove to provide growth and delivery of the Trust’s first class fostering service in line with our targets. Reporting to the Chief Executive, you will create and maintain strong external relationships with Commissioners, Local Authority Customers and Ofsted to ensure the safe protection of children and promote their welfare. Ideal candidates Working As a registered Social Worker with a recognised social work qualification you will have extensive experience of working in the independent sector and comprehensive fostering knowledge along side a minimum of 5 years management experience in the fostering sector. Full details and application documents here  Are you passionate about making a positive and lasting difference to children and young people? Do you want to work for a Registered Charity and an IFA with ambitious plans for the future? If the answer is YES, then we want to hear from you!
We are looking for an enthusiastic and passionate Supervising Social Worker to join our experienced and successful team, someone who is reflective and creative in practice. Working together with all stakeholders you will strive to ensure that our Foster Carers, children and young people in our care reach their full potential. Location East Midlands/Lincolnshire Package We are a progressive organisation who promote a friendly and supportive working environment, where you will be rewarded for your hard work and results. As well as a competitive annual salary (up to £35,000 dependent on experience) plus a very generous car allowance (£4,800 pa) and out of hours allowance (£1,200 pa) . We also offer a comprehensive benefits package including 30 days Annual leave plus bank holidays, 35 hour week, up to 5% contributory pension, occupational sick pay, private health care, dental cover, employee assistance programme, enhanced maternity pay, life assurance, long service awards including an extra 3 days holiday after 5 years’ service, and 5 days after 10 years’, childcare vouchers and free office parking. You will also receive an additional day leave for your birthday. The Role Our staff are an integral part of our success and we are seeking to recruit a full time Supervising Social Worker initially on a 12 month fixed term contract with the potential of being made permanent. Based initially from home you will recruit, assess and support our Foster Carers as well as make placements in response to referrals from Local Authorities. Our low caseload management system ensures that we achieve good outcomes for our children and maintain a high quality service. Ideal candidates This is an exciting opportunity for a Social Work England registered Social Worker with at least 2 years’ experience. Someone who can work flexibly as part of a busy team and wants the opportunity to provide a quality service to our children, young people and Foster Carers. Working links to the Foster Care environment would be advantageous. We currently have 4 Regional offices with the East Midlands being the fifth which you will have the opportunity to help develop. The Children’s Family Trust is an equal opportunities employer and committed to promoting the welfare and safeguarding of children, ensuring that they are kept safe. As you will be in an environment which involves child protection and working with Looked After Children, you will need to be covered by DBS clearance, which the Trust will undertake. This position is also subject to receipt of satisfactory references. How to apply To apply please email your CV to jobs@thecft.org.uk. If selected for interview candidates will be required to complete an Application Form and Equality & Diversity Monitoring Form available from our website. If you require additional information please contact our Head Office Team on 01527 556924. We are a great company to work for and this is a rare opportunity to make a ‘real’ difference in children’s lives. To read more about our unique history, please click here. Please note that depending on the current COVID-19 situation, interviews will be held either ‘virtually’ or at one of our regional offices. Full details and application documents here  At The Children’s Family Trust (CFT), we value all of our audience, customers and service users, and strive to ensure that everyone accessing our website has the most positive user experience possible. We have recently added a new accessibility tool, Recite Me, which allows users to customise our website and view it in a way that works best for you. Here’s why web accessibility and inclusivity matters to us: People are our priority
With our new software, we can make a difference by ensuring our children can access the information they need coming in to care in a format that is accessible to them, as well as providing our staff and foster carers with the tools to read information in a way that best suits them. We embrace all walks of life and backgrounds Alongside disability and literacy-based barriers to accessing information, providing information to people whose first language is not English is an important part of reaching individuals in the UK who want to provide stable and loving homes to children in care. With 1 in 10 people not speaking English as their first language, it is important that we reach these communities by allowing them to access information in a way that is comfortable and clear for them. In addition to this, in recent years we have seen a rise in the number of children coming into care who do not speak English as their first language, and as an organisation we recognise that this time is already a very difficult experience for a child or young person to go through, without having to worry about the added pressure of language barriers. With this new software, users can benefit from the real-time translation feature, which can translate our information into over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices. Our Marketing and Media Manager, Jessica, commented “We are excited to be launching the Recite Me Toolbar on our website in the hope that it will make the experience for all of our users more comfortable.” “As an organisation, we support both foster carers and children from all walks of life and backgrounds, and it is important for us to ensure that our stakeholders are receiving information in a way that suits them best. We are hopeful that adding the Recite Me toolbar will make our website function in a more accessible and inclusive way for all and allow us to reach more people.” Guide to using Recite Me For more information on Recite Me, check out their website here. Here’s our quick guide to using Recite Me on our website: Screen Reader Our screen reader helps people who are visually impaired or neuro-divergent to perceive and understand the information on our website. Key features include:
You can see the reader being used in this image.  Styling Our website is customisable to a way that works for you. Recite Me supports people who are dyslexic, visually impaired or have a learning disability to change the way our website looks, so you can experience it the way it is intended. Key features include:
The styling function has lots of different options, as shown in our example image.  Reading Support Reading content online can be a challenge for some people. To simplify and support you to read our content, Recite Me provides additional reading tools. Tools include:
The reading function makes small writing easy to read, as shown in our example image.  Translation 1 in 10 people don’t speak English as their first language in the UK. By using Recite Me, you can quickly and easily translate all our website content into over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices. The translation function changes everything you see on our website, as shown in our example image. If you have any additional questions about using Recite me on our website, you can contact us on 01527 574446 or email us.  Source:
https://thecft.org.uk  The Children’s Family Trust are currently seeking individuals to join our Board of Trustees, and we would be particularly interested to hear from applicants who have fostering experience or experience of being a young person in foster care.
Location National. Our Trustees are based across the country and come together periodically (meeting in various locations) for Trustee Meetings. The Role The duties of a Trustee Board member are to:
In addition to the above statutory duties, each Trustee should use any specific skills, knowledge or experience they have to help the Board of Trustees reach sound decisions. This may involve leading discussions, focusing on key issues, providing advice and guidance on new initiatives, evaluation or other issues in which the Trustee has special expertise. Please see the full role description listed below for further details. Please note that this is an unpaid volunteer role – please contact us for further details. Ideal candidates Each trustee must have:
The Children’s Family Trust is an equal opportunities employer and committed to promoting the welfare and safeguarding of children, ensuring that they are kept safe. As you will be in an environment which involves child protection and working with Looked After Children, you will need to be covered by DBS clearance, which The CFT will undertake. This position is also subject to receipt of satisfactory references. How to apply To apply please email singleton.victoria@thecft.org.uk for further information. To read more about our unique history, please click here. Closing Date: Ongoing Source: https://thecft.org.uk Member Job Opportunity: The Children's Family Trust - Independent Form F Assessor: Various Locations3/4/2021
 Location
Carrying out Form F assessments in applicants homes. These positions are linked to and working in conjunction with our North East, Yorkshire and South Central offices. Package The CFT pay £2,100 upon successful completion of a Form F Assessment. We also pay a mileage rate of 0.45 per mile. The role
Ideal candidates You will need to be a qualified social worker and registered with Social Work England. An enhanced DBS disclosure is also required. Applicants must be able to commute to where the assessments will take place. Previous experience of completing Form F assessments is essential. Please note that all appointments are subject to a DBS check (provided by the successful candidate) and receipt of satisfactory references. How to apply Please email jobs@thecft.org.uk for an application pack Source: https://thecft.org.uk  Today we are introducing you to a new staff member… but a strangely familiar face! Please join us in welcoming Patricia Moore as our Support Worker for our South-Central Region. Patricia has previously been a long-term Foster Carer with our South-Central team, before joining us as a Support Worker recently. We are so excited to welcome Patricia to The CFT staff team!
Patricia is very passionate about Fostering, and she believes the knowledge and experience that she possesses as a former Foster Carer will bring new dimensions to her support worker role. Patricia has also been conducting workshops for new Foster Carers to help them prepare them for their new fostering role. We took some time to sit with Patricia (virtually) to get to know her better and find out how she feels about her new role, and her new insight into a different aspect of the organisation… Tell us something about yourself Patricia? “To start with, I will say I love what I am doing. I love children, and I am passionate about Fostering and helping children. I am originally from Argentina; however, I have been in England for 40 years, and for most of my life I have worked mainly in the education sector. As a person, I am passionate about helping people. When I lived in London, I worked in administration for different universities and usually dealt with day-to-day problems faced by students. I have also worked in a language school as an International welfare officer, supporting students from abroad requiring help with accommodation, medical, or sometimes visa-related issues. It was my job to assist them with any problems that they had, and my jobs have always involved helping. I have also done a lot of teaching abroad as well as in England, and I used to work in a college as a Spanish teacher. Even after all the different experiences I have had, I would say Fostering has taken me to a different level professionally. Apart from my work, in my free time, I love walking. I love nature and living near the beach gives me the fortune to enjoy both. I enjoy reading and I also have a keen interest in politics. Apparently, I am a good cook, so I love cooking and preparing meals. My legacy is cooking, and all my foster children love the food I prepare. It’s a real passion of mine”. You were initially a Foster Carer and now you are a Support Worker. How do you feel now that you have a different role within the Fostering world? “Well, I love Fostering. I absolutely love looking after children. Many people have asked me “What is the best thing about Fostering?” and without a doubt, I would say the children. Children are definitely the highlight of Fostering. After 6 years in Fostering, my husband and I decided to retire to spend our time with family. So, when I heard about this role, I thought this was a kind of natural progression, as it comes as second nature to me. I feel that I will be able to help more children in this role by supporting the Foster Carers and I feel this role means that I can still make a difference. I have always loved The CFT and am thrilled that I can continue to work with the organisation. I have lots of ideas of how to support Foster Carers and feel that my previous experience of a carer allows me to relate to any issues they are facing with more understanding. When a Foster Carer talks, I understand that he/she may be stressed or feeling overwhelmed, and I also know that it is temporary. Fostering can feel a little like a roller coaster at times, and carers just need the right support to help them through this, which CFT provide. I would have never made the change from being a Foster Carer to a Support Worker if I hadn’t believed in The CFT.” What attracted you to become a Foster Carer? “Now this is a bit of an interesting story. When I first moved into my current home, I was chatting with my next-door neighbour over the fence and she told me she was nervous. When I asked her why, she explained that she was a Foster Carer and that she was getting her first placement that day. Later that day, I saw a young 14-year-old boy arrive and long story short – I became really close to him. I loved talking with him and saw a real change in him, and this led me to think that maybe I could foster. It’s big commitment to bring a child into your home and I want to be sure that I had the necessary qualities to be a foster carer. I had teenage children at that point (20 & 17), and they wanted to be sure that it is not dangerous, so I did my research. It was very important to me that my family were supportive of our plans, and so we had many discussions before making the decision together as a family to foster. I had initially approached a few independent fostering agencies and found that they were not the right fit me for. Shortly afterward, my neighbour introduced me to The CFT and from within 5 minutes of the CFT Social Worker walking into my home, I thought yes, they are the agency for me”. Tell us something more about your Fostering experience? “I had a very successful placement for five years. He left our home two and a half years ago, but he still calls me nearly every day. He is part of my family, and he is very successful now. It’s great to see how he has transitioned into being an adult over the years, and it is very impressive. Fostering is so rewarding because of that, and I can say I am as close to him as any mother should be. When he arrived with us, he was so confused, upset, and angry, and now he has joined the Army, and he is doing well. It’s amazing to see how he has grown.” What inspired you to pursue the career you have today? What motivates you at work? “I believe in a better world and I also think that we can all do well in life. If we have the right conditions and believe that we can all help others, we can all live in a better society. I believe children are the future of any community and if you invest time in children, you will invest time in the future.” What do you like so far about the organisation? “The fact that The CFT is a non-profit charity organisation and always trying to improve the service. I also like the ‘family for life’ Ethos of the organisation, as this is what I exactly do with my foster children. I also like how much CFT cares for their staff, which I have noticed from day one. I enjoyed talking to different people in the company when I first started, and everyone was very friendly.” What skill do you think everyone should learn- as a Foster Carer and Social Worker? “I feel that being organised and empathetic is essential to both roles. It is also important to be reflective, because there may be occasions where you can look at a situation and think ‘I could have done this differently or better.” What do you hope to achieve during your first year with the organisation? “I want to establish myself in this role, as it is the first time the south central team have had a support worker. Currently, I am working remotely, which is an experience, but I like new challenges. I would like to get to know the children a little better, as I already know many of the foster carers. I am also getting to know some of the newer carers because I am doing a lot of training with them, so that’s good. I have become part of the team quite quickly, which previously I was worried about because they were the ones supervising me before, but after working with the team, my worry is long gone. I want to be able to help Supervising Social Workers as much as I can, and I am also open to trying different tasks within the role. We deal with people, so our role is quite evolving, and I am happy to grow according to the requirement of my office.” We would like to thank Patricia for taking the time to speak to us and for her work so far with the organisation. On behalf of all of The CFT, we would like to extend our warmest welcome and best wishes to Patricia! Source: https://thecft.org.uk  The government made a manifesto commitment of a ‘bold and broad review’ of the care system that prioritised stable loving placements for children in care.
Many of the care leavers we speak to say there is a lack of love in the care system. The review must address the stigmatisation, discrimination and loneliness that care experienced people experience. Radical change has been promised but after years of austerity cuts and the impact of the pandemic on local authority resources, the review must not seek to remove further funding from children’s services. Instead, it should look at the effects of the marketisation of care. We welcome the ‘Experts by Experience’ and look forward to working with Josh MacAlister to make sure that the care experienced people in the North West have their voice heard. Scotland’s bold and participatory review of their care system has shown us what’s possible, so this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make meaningful change for children and young people in the care system. Mark Lee, Chief Executive said: “Care experienced people deserve the best possible life chances but the care system often does not allow that. The Care Review for England offers the opportunity to change that. “The North West has some of the highest levels of looked-after children in the country so the review must address the need for early intervention and robust support for families in crisis. “We want to see the care system transformed, with love at the heart and care-experience people making decisions. We look forward to working closely with Josh MacAlistair to make that happen.” Source: www.togethertrust.org.uk |
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