Senior Social Worker (SSW) - Social Care Qualified

The Child Protection Inquiry Team is a specialist, short-term service responsible for undertaking statutory safeguarding work, including:

• Completing Section 47 Child Protection enquiries

• Undertaking Section 17 assessments, including 15-day assessments where appropriate

• Responding to new safeguarding referrals through a duty rota every four weeks

• Completing statutory visits and gathering information from children, families and partner agencies

• Assessing risk, identifying safeguarding concerns and determining appropriate next steps

• Working closely with schools, health professionals, police and other partner agencies

• Producing high-quality assessments and reports within statutory timescales

• Ensuring children and young people's voices, wishes and feelings remain central to decision-making

• Transferring cases appropriately to longer-term teams once enquiries or assessments are completed

This is not a long-term case-holding service. Cases are transferred to the relevant teams once the short-term safeguarding work has been completed.

Despite the fast-paced nature of the service, caseloads are intentionally kept low, with Social Workers typically holding around 3–4 children at any one time.

This allows practitioners to focus on completing thorough, timely and high-quality safeguarding enquiries and assessments.

We are seeking Social Workers who have:

• A recognised Social Work qualification

• Current Social Work England registration

• Recent experience within children's safeguarding, assessment or child protection services

• Strong experience completing Section 47 enquiries

• Good knowledge of Section 17 assessments

• Experience undertaking statutory visits and assessing risk

• Strong safeguarding and child protection knowledge

• The ability to manage competing priorities and work to statutory timescales

• Excellent communication, assessment and report-writing skills

• The confidence to work independently while also contributing effectively to a team

• Strong professional references

• Ideally, access to a car, as the role involves statutory home visits across Birmingham

Caseload: Typically 3–4 children
Duty: One week in every four

• Structured induction to help you settle into the service

• Supportive and experienced management team

• Manageable caseloads

• Hybrid and flexible working

• Free on-site parking

• Access to a wide range of free training and CPD opportunities

• Support for ongoing Social Work England registration and professional development

• Opportunity to gain further specialist child protection and safeguarding experience

This is a great opportunity for an experienced Social Worker who enjoys frontline safeguarding work, wants to focus on high-quality assessments and enquiries, and values working within a supportive team with manageable caseloads.

If you are an experienced Children's Social Worker with strong Section 47 and safeguarding experience and are available to start ASAP, we'd love to hear from you.