Service Manager - Fostering-Planning For Permanence And Short Breaks

Contract Type: Permanent

Contract Hours: 37 per week

Salary: Grade H6 SCP 53-59 £65,787 - £72,563 per annum

Closing Date: 6th March 2026 12 Noon 

Service Manager for Fostering - Planning for Permanence and Short Breaks 

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a passionate and experienced leader to join Blackpool Borough Council as a Service Manager for Fostering - Planning for Permanence and Short Breaks. This role is your chance to inspire and lead a team of dedicated, skilled staff and carers, who are passionate about providing children and young people the opportunity to flourish and fulfil their true potential.

We are dedicated to working in partnership with our partners to focus on children’s and family strengths, working within our Blackpool Families Rock model of practice and to provide Our Children with stability and quality support plans.

Blackpool Children’s Services aims to support practitioners to work in partnership with families to ensure that, where appropriate, children and young people are cared for by their family. When this is not an option for the child we seek to support them within an alternative family care arrangement or fostering family wherever possible. You will be instrumental in developing and delivering our newly established Fostering recruitment HUB and Mockingbird model and to help shape, influence, and implement the future growth and development of the wider Fostering Service.

You will supervise Team Managers who are responsible for the recruitment and support of foster carers, assessment of kinship carers within care proceedings and the subsequent support to these kinship carers as connected carers or under a Special Guardianship Order.

For further information please contact Rachel Barnes, Head of Service on Rachel.Barnes@blackpool.gov.uk

What we offer

• Pay: our salary offer is strong and candidates who are recruited from the same or similar role may be eligible for a salary match within the above salary banding
• Genuine flexible working: family-friendly patterns such as flexible start/finish times and state of the art technology support, so you can spend some time working from home.
• Small teams, clear line management and practice development support
• Caseloads: they’re going down, they’re manageable, varied and appropriate to your role. 
• Easy and regular access to the senior leadership team & Principal Social Worker
• Social Work England registration fee is paid
• 26 days’ annual leave (rising to 28 after 5 yrs & 32 days after 10 yrs) and the option to buy an additional 5 days on top of that, via salary sacrifice. 
• Encouragement to take your TOIL back – we mean it!
• Supervision: our strengthened supervision policy supports you to build a trusting relationship with your manager. 
• Leadership is ‘good’ and ‘stable’ – DfE appointed Independent Commissioner.
• Career development is focused on supporting your development.
• Relocation support up to £8,000
• Blackpool Council Staff benefit scheme: Social Work Benefits and Diversity | Next Step Blackpool
• Employee Assistance Programme, to support you through challenging times e.g. with free counselling, financial or legal advice.
• Mental Health First Aiders that are here for you
• Principal Social Worker Best Practice Awards are our way of saying ‘thank you’ to our amazing and committed staff

to view the Job Description.

Please click here to see the benefits of working for Blackpool Council.

Are you a Blackpool resident aged between 16-24? Would you benefit from some free guidance on producing a quality application for job vacancies such as this one? Blackpool Council?s Youth Hub - The Platform, has highly skilled Employment Advisers that can support you with demonstrating how you can evidence you meet the Essential and Desirable criteria requirements on a Job Description.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children/vulnerable adults. This post is subject to satisfactory reference history of at least two years, Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check, medical clearance, evidence of any essential qualifications and proof of Right to Work in the UK in accordance with the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and amendments to the exemptions order, which mean that certain offences are ‘protected’ and do not need to be disclosed, guidance on the "filtering" of offences can be found at New filtering rules for DBS certificates (from 28 November 2020 onwards) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

For further information on the health and wellbeing support on offer during your employment, please see here.

Have you got what it takes to ride the Roller Coaster ride of Social Work in Blackpool? for further information on the career path and development opportunities available at Blackpool please see here.

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