Senior Practitioner – Children in Care – North

Senior Practitioner – Children in Care – North Essex Permanent, Full Time
48,205 to 57,988 Per Annum

Location:

Clacton on Sea Working Style:
Community-based worker

Closing Date: 18th October 2026 Essex County Council (ECC) is one of the largest and most dynamic local authorities in the UK, serving a population of 2 million residents, and has a very successful track record of delivering transformational change. ECC anticipated change was needed in the public sector and has worked to deliver better quality at lower cost. We have an ambitious transformation agenda – one with the scope to reach every part of the council.

We are changing the way we think, the way we work, and the ways in which we deliver our services. We are committed to becoming a place where individuals, partners and communities feel proud to play their role and genuinely want to belong. We’re immensely proud of our flexible working options.

The Team Children in Care teams work with children and young people up to the age of 18 who are in care – they’re unable to live at home and are either placed with foster carers or live in residential homes. They work with children and young people to ensure their experiences in care is a good one and that the work undertaken prepares them for their transition into leaving care or return home to family.

The CIC Teams receive cases in proceedings after the first hearing, they visit children and young people in placement, develop permanency plans which include SGO and adoption, undertake life-story work to enable a child to understand the reasons for being in care and also support children to return home to birth family. The teams are all committed to high quality work and engagement with all children in care to maximise young people’s potential.

Like many other areas across Essex, they believe in working collaboratively with agencies including Health and Education to ensure that care plans support the outcomes for the child.

To read more about our business area, please visit:
Children & Families Please take a look at our ‘No Magic’ Children & Families video

The Role The Senior Practitioner role provides leadership in the team, providing both support and mentoring to newly qualified or less experienced staff and deputising for the Team Manager when needed. They will support less experienced social workers at court, panel attendance and complex meetings and will have responsibility to lead in a practice area. There will be good opportunities for their own professional development and for being part of developing our team and service.

There is an ethos of openness to the development of new ideas, particularly to reinforce our relationship based focus, both with our service users and within the staff group.

Job Purpose The successful candidate will be expected to bring skill and high standards of social work to their own caseload as well as providing modelling, advice and support to colleagues. They will be committed to systemic, relationship based social work, providing effective, innovative interventions and with the ability to build good partnerships, both with our external partners and within the organisation.

Key Accountabilities Responsible for complex cases, seeking management support and accessing supervision as required.
• Responsible for providing professional guidance to colleagues and support and feedback to the team manager.
• To maintain an up to date record of activity on case files, produce reports, attend court and give verbal presentations as required. To participate actively in case discussions, legal case discussions, Child Protection conferences, Statutory Reviews, etc.
• Represent ECC in court proceedings
• Participate in quality assurance processes, for example…