Supervising Social Worker
Leaders in Care
Location: Rawtenstall office base, with regional travel
Salary: £35,146 – £41,736
Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week
Contract: Permanent
Leaders in Care is recruiting two enthusiastic and skilled Supervising Social Workers for a well-established independent fostering service.
This is a rewarding opportunity for a confident, independent social worker to support both specialist and mainstream fostering placements. You will manage a caseload of foster carers, work closely with a dedicated team, and play a vital role in improving the outcomes and life chances of children and young people in care.
Both posts are office-based from Rawtenstall, with regular travel across the relevant regional patch.
The vacancies Vacancy 1 – Lancashire
Supporting a caseload of approximately 13 foster carers across:
Rawtenstall Blackburn Burnley Vacancy 2 – Greater Manchester & Yorkshire
Supporting a caseload of approximately 13 foster carers across:
Oldham Manchester Bradford Barnsley What you’ll be doing
As a Supervising Social Worker, you will provide high-quality supervision, support and development opportunities to foster carers, ensuring children’s care, development and placement needs are consistently met.
Key responsibilities include:
- Managing and supervising a caseload of foster carers within the agency’s fostering framework and regulatory requirements.
- Supporting carers to understand developmental trauma and respond effectively to children and young people who may display challenging behaviour.
- Ensuring children’s care plans are followed and their developmental, emotional and practical needs are met. Providing placement management, planning and intervention to help maintain strong placement stability and occupancy.
- Completing foster carer assessments, interviews and approval reports, including presenting to fostering panel where required.
- Supporting the recruitment and assessment of prospective foster carers, working closely with the Recruitment Manager.
- Contributing to foster carer recruitment activity and campaigns. Delivering or coordinating mandatory training, support groups and further development opportunities for foster carers.
- Building strong working relationships with local authority commissioning teams, social workers and other external professionals.
- Producing child progress reports, LAC review reports and other required monitoring information for local authorities.
- Undertaking direct work where needed and coordinating input from Social Work Assistants, Sessional Workers and other colleagues.
- Maintaining clear, accurate and timely records, including paperless case recording, diary management and statutory notifications.
- Completing regular self-audits of recording and reporting concerns or risks to management promptly.
- Participating in the out-of-hours duty rota to provide telephone support to foster carers.
- Working pattern and out-of-hours support 37.5 hours per week, full-time.
- Office attendance includes Team Tuesday, plus one additional office day per week to provide support and cover duty requirements.
- Out-of-hours duty is shared on a rota basis, approximately one week in every six.
- The on-call period runs from 5pm on Monday until 9am the following Monday, including weekend cover.
- On-call is paid at £25 per night
- . A manager is always available for support, with senior-management support also available when required.
To be successful, you will be an empathetic, organised and resilient Social Worker with a genuine commitment to improving the lives of looked-after children.
You will ideally bring:
- A recognised Social Work qualification and current Social Work England registration. Experience in fostering, children’s services or supporting children and young people with complex needs.
- Experience of supervising, supporting, assessing or training foster carers.
- Strong knowledge of fostering regulations, safeguarding procedures and care planning.
- The ability to work independently while contributing positively within a close-knit team.
- Excellent written communication skills, including confidence producing assessments, reports and professional correspondence.
- Strong relationship-building skills with foster carers, local authorities and multi-disciplinary professionals. Confidence using IT systems, electronic recording systems, Microsoft Office and diary-management tools. Flexibility to travel across the allocated region and participate in the out-of-hours rota.
This is an opportunity to join a supportive fostering team where your work will directly contribute to stable, nurturing placements and better outcomes for children and young people. You’ll have a manageable caseload, structured management support and the chance to develop your experience across specialist and mainstream fostering services.
Apply today through (url removed) to find out more about either Supervising Social Worker vacancy.
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