Advanced Children's Social Worker

Overview

We have an exciting opportunity in our Assessment and Staying Together Teams within East Staffordshire (Burton on Trent). Life-changing work. Game changing support. Our Social Workers make a huge difference to the lives of people across our county, and we remain passionate about investing in retaining our own and developing practice and this an exciting opportunity which offers just that.

If you are looking for more responsibility, a supportive role with your colleagues whilst continuing to support and safeguard some of our most vulnerable/high risk children and young people, then this could be just for you.

We are looking for qualified social workers with post qualifying experience of working with vulnerable children and knowledge of safeguarding and children in care. A career progression framework is in place to support you which also includes:

• Practice Educator Programme.
• Aspiring Senior Practice Lead and Aspiring Team Manager programmes.

We are ambitious in our learning and development programme with strong links within the West Midlands and our teaching partnership. For more information on working in at Staffordshire and our social worker career pathway, please visit Staffordshire County Council’s Children & Families - Careers at Staffordshire.

• You will: manage a complex allocation of children and share in day-to-day care management tasks with the team manager, promoting a restorative approach to working with children and families, making decisions and providing advice and guidance to social workers with regard to child in need, Child Protection and Child in Care and Care Proceedings, in consultation with the manager, and chairing of strategy meetings, complex Child in Need and Core Group meetings.
• Promote effective multi-agency service delivery, and restorative practice with partner agencies.
• Ensure the teamwork towards achieving key service delivery objectives to ensure satisfactory team performance against key performance indicators.
• Mentor Social Work colleagues through assistance with complex cases including Care Proceedings work to support the professional development of newly qualified social workers.
• Be responsible for the provision of practice placements for students and support social workers undertaking the practice assessment and workload management of social work students in the team.
• Provide professional supervision to unqualified staff (including students and sessional workers) including identifying training needs.
• Lead on or contribute to projects as directed by the team manager.

• Qualified Social Worker with post qualifying experience
• Registered with Social Work England
• Have a current UK driving licence and vehicle
• Desire to work with children and families to give them the right support, at the right time with the aim of keeping families together where it’s safe to do so

Don’t feel you meet all the requirements? We value transferable skills, experiences, and qualifications so consider applying anyway or for an informal chat please contact Joel Davison, Team Manager at Staffordshire County Council.

Interview date: week commencing 27th October 2025

We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

We are no ordinary county council:
Our Values:
The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively. Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:
We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future. We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

Our benefits:
We recognise…