Children's Social Worker

Cheshire West and Chester Council brings a fresh and energetic approach to providing top quality services for its many customers and communities. West Cheshire is a place where everyone can Thrive – through our core values of Teamwork, Honesty, Respect, Innovation, Value for Money and Empowerment.

We are continuing with our ambition to recruit committed, creative, resilient, and experienced Social Workers to join our Children's Social Care teams across Cheshire West and Chester.

Our expanded Social Work Teams across all our statutory services ensures that we can continue to provide a high level of service and commitment to our children and families and to ensure that our Social Workers workloads allow them to achieve this.

Salaries for experienced and progressed Social Workers range from £33.820 to £43.366

Our recent Social Work Survey told us that 92% of our Social Workers identify a positive learning culture in Cheshire West and Chester, and an emphasis on taking time for self-care. 85% of Social Workers told us that Supervision is a safe space to raise issues where emotional support is offered and that Managers are available for support outside of supervision. 92% of the workforce agree that Cheshire West and Chester is a learning organisation with a positive learning culture, that it is priority. 97% of our Social Workers would recommend Cheshire West and Chester as a good place to work and 90% see a future for themselves within our workforce and recognised that the office environment supports them in their role.

We are recruiting to the following teams: -

Child in Need Teams, based in Chester, Winsford and Ellesmere Port.

Child Protection/Court Teams based in Chester, Winsford and Ellesmere Port.

Permanence Teams - working with children who are in Care - offices based in Winsford and Ellesmere Port

Supporting Independence Team – working with young people preparing to leave care. Office based in Ellesmere Port

Children with Disabilities Team - Office based in Ellesmere Port

You will need to have experience in some of the following areas:- assessment and planning in child in need, child protection and/or working with children who subject to Care Proceedings’ and who are 'looked after', experience of working with children with disabilities. Please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification for more detail.

Our Children's Social Care workforce is passionate and committed to improving outcomes for children by providing a consistent, high-quality service to children and families, together with excellent working relationships across our teams and with our partners and this is supported by a stable leadership and management team.

We are committed to a culture of shared learning and development in which everyone has a part to play to ensure that our services to children and families focusses on positive outcomes.

We have developed and continue to embed our practice model ‘Our Way of Working’ with our multi-agency partners to ensure collaboration and one common approach to our work with children and families using Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Informed Practice.  Social workers are encouraged and supported to work creatively in planning and decision-making with children and their families and our partner agencies, to achieve positive outcomes and with a focus on prevention at every level. As a Social Worker you will be supported to work effectively with children, young people, and families/carers to achieve positive change and improved outcomes.

We are continuously finding ways to enhance our inspirational social work offer to support and develop our valued workforce, including.

• Newly designed, bright modern and collaborative working environments.
• Work-life balance, flexible and remote working arrangements in place.
• We’ll pay your Social Work England registration fee.
• High quality progression and developmental opportunities
• Competitive working rewards
• High quality supervision
• Strong reflective practice framework
• Free parking at all our office locations

We have enhanced our ability to work away from an office, to be more flexible and creative in the use of our time and maximising the use of technology, whilst at the same time ensuring we can come together as teams and with our support networks on a regular basis. This ‘hybrid’ arrangement allows for us to be more flexible in how we provide services to children and families and an enhanced work/life balance for our Social Workers. 

Ideally, you will have a minimum of 12 months post qualifying experience and will have completed your ASYE (Assessed and Supported Year of Employment). We will offer you a comprehensive package of training and development opportunities to support your career pathway. Most of our management and leadership team have progressed their careers within Cheshire West and Chester.

We have a strong political and senior leadership team with a wealth of experience and knowledge about children’s outcomes across the borough of Cheshire West and Chester. Children’s social care and the wider partnership use this understanding well to target areas for continued improvement.

If you have any queries about these vacancies and the opportunities available within our authority, please contact Interim Senior Manager & Recruitment Lead Helen Doyle on 0151 337 6303 or helen.doyle@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk

This is an ongoing recruitment programme and whilst the closing date for applications has been set, please note that applications will be considered as they are received, and interviews arranged, so please don’t wait until the closing date if you are interested in applying.

Please note that this job is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

To find out more information about what it is like to work for Cheshire West and Chester Council including our rewards and benefits please see www.cwcrecruitment.co.uk

No candidate will meet every single requirement - if your experience looks a little different from what we've identified and you think you can bring value to the role, we'd love to learn more about you!

Cheshire West and Chester Council are committed to equality and diversity in employment.  Please see the Equality Policy for more information.

Cheshire West and Chester Council have adopted a Local Living Wage for our employees which means that all employees will receive a minimum of £10.90 per hour for all contracted hours.

For any technical enquiries please email Sourcingteam@ecwip.co.uk and quote job reference number in all correspondence.