Job Opportunity: Barnardo's - Family Placement Social Worker

Location: Barnardo's Scotland Fostering Edinburgh
Contract type: Permanent
Hours: 37
Salary: £28,632 - £37,414
Closing Date: 13 August 2021
Interview Date: 25th August

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This post offers the opportunity to join a committed and enthusiastic team of professional social workers and to develop knowledge and skills in the specialist area of family placement within a very supportive setting.

In this role, you will have the remit to ensure quality of placements provided by foster carers, providing support, supervision and training as appropriate.

You will have the opportunity to work alongside referring social workers to identify and support foster carers, to provide family based care to children and young people and ensure that care experienced children have positive outcomes.

Solid experience in fieldwork, residential or in a family placement setting is an essential part of the role, so if you have this then we would love to hear from you.

• Degree in Social Work or relevant qualification in the field, such as DipSW, CQSW. (essential)
• Registered with the Scottish Social Services Council, or other British equivalent
• Proactive team player with excellent communication skills and the ability to work flexibly and independently
• Good working knowledge of child protection procedures and legislation as applied to care experienced children in Scotland
• A good working knowledge and understanding of the issues facing parents and foster carers.
• A full clean driving license and use of car (travel across Scotland will be required)

This is an extremely rewarding role, which can make a real and significant difference to the lives of children and young people.

Our Edinburgh office is looking for a committed social care professional with a sound knowledge of fostering legislation and practice issues who will be able to continue to deliver the same high standards of service. You will be involved in the recruitment, training and supervision of Foster Carers within the Edinburgh, Lothians, Fife and Scottish Borders areas.

As a qualified and registered social worker, you will have experience of family placement work and preferably experience of foster care practice, including the assessment of potential foster carers. A good knowledge of fostering regulations, child care law and safeguarding issues is essential. You will have excellent communication skills and a commitment to high quality practice.

The role of Family Placement Social Worker is an exciting and a stimulating one that involves providing intensive support to foster carers and their families to enable them to provide the very best quality of care to the vulnerable children they care for. 

Working in accordance with the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 and the Fostering Services National Minimum Standards 2011, you will provide monthly Supervision to a manageable caseload of foster carers, undertake additional planned and unannounced visits to children in placement, formulate training and development plans for carers, and forge effective working relationships with the local authorities responsible for children. You will have excellent recording and report writing skills and will be IT competent.

You will be a team player, a good communicator and a skilled and self-motivated professional, with the ability to work flexibly. As well as managing your caseload, you will be part of a duty rota to support the running of the service, both within and outside of normal office hours. This role involves some out of hours working on our helpline to foster families. There is also an expectation that you will be involved in delivering training to prospective and existing foster carers.

You will have a good understanding of the needs of care experienced children and of the challenges that these bring for foster carers, as well as transferrable assessment skills, but you need not have direct experience within the fostering sector.

You will have a strong commitment to promoting and safeguarding the wellbeing of children, but you will also have an appreciation of the demands that come with working for a high quality independent fostering service in an increasingly competitive environment.
Over the past year, our workers have all been working from home, however we are working towards a blended working approach which will likely be a mix of home and office based working. 

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification, Job Description and Additional Information document (if applicable). This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

About Barnardo's
At Barnardo's we believe in children – no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. Please read about our basis and values following the link below. You will be asked questions relating to them as part of the recruitment process for this role.
 
Barnardo's is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce for staff and volunteers. We actively encourage applications from disabled, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and male candidates as they are under-represented within Barnardo's.

Full details and application documents here