Adults Social Worker - Early & Wellbeing

Interviews will be held in person at County Hall, Chelmsford on 30th January 2026.

Mental health social care is transforming into a new operational delivery model improving our early intervention and prevention offer to Essex residents with a focus on people currently not receiving services or falling through existing gaps. The offer is to ensure care act compliance across the system offering information advice and guidance and providing support to improve wellbeing outcomes. Within this service there will be a mixture of the team carrying out direct work alongside people and completing care act assessments relevant to wellbeing outcomes and the completion of care act reviews.

The Early Help & Wellbeing Team is a welcoming, compassionate and innovative team to work in, offering preventative and early help to connect people who are experiencing difficulties with their mental wellbeing and/or neurodivergent conditions to opportunities in their own communities and provide support that enables them to achieve personal ambitions, goals and aspirations.

We’re an adult social care service that wants to see citizens of Essex have as much choice and control over the way they live their lives as possible. We think everyone should have the chance to live a full and fulfilling life with people they love and care about, doing things that matter to them and living in a place they can call home.

We’re determined that with the right support, everyone can maintain or achieve some independence and we’re proud to be working to make these ambitions a reality.

Our Social Workers work alongside people and their families and carers to help them think through what might help them get on with their lives in the way that works best for them. We do this within the framework of our statutory Care Act requirements. This means many of our conversations are framed as ‘assessments’, ‘reviews’, ‘support planning’ and ‘safeguarding’. But our aim is always to listen and understand what matters to the person and then to work with them to think through how this might be achieved.

Take a look at our short video here to get a glimpse into the role and what it’s like to be a Social Worker at Essex County Council.

If you share our vision, enjoy meeting people and hearing their stories you might be interested to find out more about what we do.

If you’re also an experienced Social Worker registered with Social Work England and post ASYE with that winning combination of creative thought, reliability and practical ability to get things done, we’d really love to hear from you!

You’ll have a broad understanding of our statutory responsibilities and a commitment to meeting these in a person‑centred way.

You may have experience of chairing meetings, and you’ll have an ability to develop strong relationships with partner agencies and the local community to provide a supportive framework.

Our Social Worker roles involve travelling around Essex. A driving licence and car – or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means – is essential.

In June 2025, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated our Adult Social Care services as "Good" with a score of 73%.

"The local authority had a good structure and processes in place to enable people to be supported successfully, and support people to remain independent and live healthy lives. The workforce was passionate about supporting people to achieve these outcomes and the local authority had good knowledge of their area, the people living there and the demographics."

You can read the full report on the CQC website here.

Our teams are busy but warm, friendly and supportive. Our fabulous team managers will help you manage your workload and develop your practice.

We take your career just as seriously as you do, and we have a continuing professional development offer that’s second to none.

We welcome diversity because it makes us grow and we’re determined to become a fully inclusive and an anti‑racist organisation.

We’ll support you to be your best and will offer:

• Ongoing opportunities for continuing professional development
• Flexibl…