Senior Lead Child Protection Practitioner

Senior Lead Child Protection Practitioner -

Grade: G12;
Salary Range: £57,499 - £61,453

1x Permanent

2x Fixed Term for 12 months

“When children need help or protection, they receive a timely and effective response. Workers engage parents sensitively, so they understand the concerns about their children and the role of children’s social care. There is robust management oversight of the work, ensuring that work is timely and thresholds are appropriate.”

Walsall began implementing the Families First Programme in 2024, based on the National Children’s Social Care Review and Stable Homes Built on Love. To do this we have created a combined, multi-agency locality Family Help Service, with locality social workers supported by a team of Lead Child Protection Practitioners.

As we progress the full implementation of the Families First Programme and MACPT, we are recruiting to permanent and fixed term Senior Lead Child Protection Practitioner positions.

The Senior Lead Child Protection Practitioner role will lead alongside the multi-agency network around a family to ensure child protection practice is of the highest standard and supported by the right expertise, careful, rigorous thinking, care and respect. You will work alongside allocated social workers and other professionals to undertake Child Protection Enquiries and oversee Child Protection Plans. You will directly line manage a small group of Lead Child Protection Practitioners, work directly with our partners in the Multi Agency Child Protection Team, support the delivery of training across the partnership and lead initiatives to oversee child protection plans ensuring that children’s plans progress and risk reduces.

As a Senior Lead Child Protection Practitioner you will use your experience and expertise across the service to ensure decisions are made for children at risk of significant harm in a timely and robust way, utilising your multi agency network.

Your background will include extensive post qualifying social work experience within a local authority or equivalent. You will have experience as a practice supervisor, team manager or child protection chair. You will utilise your practice knowledge and experience to influence the direction of child protection right across Walsall.

To provide the right conditions for you, we are committed to manageable workloads, high support from managers, essential paperwork only, enabling technologies.

Within Walsall we offer a comprehensive training and development programme which contributed to our OUTSTANDING Ofsted grading in May 2025.

There is a comprehensive training offer for workers in Walsall. There is an impressive offer to workers in gaining a social work qualification and for newly qualified social workers developing their knowledge of frontline practice. The general training offer is wide ranging and gives workers the opportunity to learn incrementally about their role.

Wellbeing is at the heart of our work. We offer specialised clinical supervision, a 9-day fortnight to support work/life balance, flexible working and specialist employee assistance and therapeutic support when it is needed. We know we need to make social work a career people want to stay in.

Salary Scale £57,499 to £61,453 plus retention bonus once you have completed 2 years of service.

21st September 2026

To be arranged

Job Description and Employee Specification

This post is covered by the Government’s Code of Practice on the English Language Fluency Duty for public sector workers. The post holder will be required to communicate verbally with customers and provide advice and/or information in accurate spoken English.

Walsall Council takes seriously the responsibility…