Member Job Opportunity: Action For Children - Fostering Social Worker

Fostering Social Worker  
Hours: Permanent, Full-Time (working 37 hours per week) 
Area: Hampshire   
Salary: £31,500 -£34,000 per annum plus £700 per annum on call allowance 
Up to 7 weeks of annual leave 
Ref: 3378

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The role 
Our Wessex Fostering service in Hampshire provides long and short term foster placements predominantly for children aged eight years and over.  We continuously aim to provide safe, secure and stable family placements within the community so that young people can experience a positive model of life for the future. We want to fully understand our children and young people in order to provide a tailored plan to support their needs and ensure they are able to build positive relationships with others. 

We are looking for a Fostering Supervising Social Worker to join our team working 37 hours a week. This will be mainly Monday to Friday during the day but there will be some flexibility required to meet the needs of the service which will include some evening and weekend working. 
We are a small, developing fostering service, located in Fareham but covering the Hampshire and surrounding areas. You will be based in our Fareham office. 

You will be responsible for providing professional supervision and developmental support to foster carers, including advice and guidance to fostering families.  You will be part of a small team and will have had exposure to managing multi agency partnerships.  This position also requires a strong understanding of the therapeutic model including PACE. 

You will be required to provide telephone on call support for our foster carers which is currently (on average) approx 4 nights per month for our England wide on call service. 

Our team including foster carers are trained to a high standard; understanding attachment and trauma work along with specific interventions. 

The difference 
What is the role? 
By 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, maximum of 4 nights per month) providing support 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year.   

The successful applicant will be part of an aspirational fostering team of social workers. You will be expected to uphold the core values and beliefs of the organisation, ensuring that children, young people and foster carers receive a high-quality service and that commissioners' expectations and contractual requirements are met. This will be instilled through effective day to day delivery of a high quality fostering service. You will also be delivering training to foster carers and their support network. 

What will you need? 

• A Degree / Diploma in Social Work or equivalent 
• Current HCPC registration 
• Supervisory experience in a regulatory environment  

• Ability to keep the service regulatory safe 
• Strong ethos of keeping the child at the centre 
• Strong sense of ability to support therapeutic needs of children 
• A stable career history and experience of fostering services 
• Access to a vehicle due to being required to travel across Hampshire and surrounding area.

What are the rewards? 

• Minimum 29 days' holiday plus bank holidays 
• Flexible working, including maternity, paternity and adoption packages 
• Season ticket travel loans 
• Company pension scheme, up to 7% employer match 

• Ability to buy and sell holiday 
• Discounts at major high street retailers.  

Plus, there's a lot more besides. 

How does Action for Children work? 
Action for Children does what's right, does what's needed and does what works for children across the UK. Every year, our team changes the lives of 301,000 children, young people and their families – but for every child who needs help to get help, there's plenty more to do. That's where you come in. 

If you really want to make a difference and be a part of an amazing team, don't hesitate, apply now! 

Interviews are scheduled for W/c 9th March 2020.

For any questions about this role or a confidential chat, please call Collette Fraser on 07741 736 739. 

​Original Post on Action for Children website: https://careers.actionforchildren.org.uk/vacancy/fostering-social-worker-3378/3396/description/