Children's Social Worker Family Safeguarding Teams

Bury Council

Full Time, Permanent

£35,412.04 - £38,220.12

About the role

Become a Children’s Social Worker for Bury and help with our ‘Let’s Do it for Children’ vision.

We are seeking to recruit an enthusiastic and dedicated social worker to join our Family Safeguarding Teams. As part of Family Safeguarding Team, you will be working alongside 6 individual teams, within each team there will be a Team Manager and 6 Social workers including Advanced Practitioners. The work is immensely rich and varied day to day and allows for a high level of multi-agency working often to tight timelines.

This is an amazing opportunity to support our most vulnerable children and families. You will be a social worker, who relishes the opportunity to work in a fast paced, creative and supportive environment. We believe our workforce is our greatest asset and we will ensure you have the right support and a positive working environment to deliver outstanding social care to children, young people and families. We believe that looking out for our young people and supporting families is a key priority for the future. Our children and young people have told us how important it is for them to feel safe, to have access to things that interest them and be proud of their local area. We want our young people to thrive, be proud to call the borough of Bury home and see it as a safe and vibrant place to grow up in. We want them to be happy and to continue to feel connected with the borough as they grow into adults, with opportunities to live, work and raise their own families here. We want you to help us to achieve our goals.

You will work directly with children, young people and families to build and maintain empathetic and person-centred relationships that facilitate change and encourage permanence whilst also working closely with other children’s services and partners

We want the best talent in Bury and need practitioners who will help influence the services we are developing. We want to help you to grow, develop confident practitioners and teams and be the best you can be.

We are the first Authority in the North-West to be pioneering the Hertfordshire Family Safeguarding Model of working with families and training will be provided to learn new skills within our Model of practice. You will be working alongside Adult Practitioners, giving you more time and scope to work with children.
Working collectively, we prioritise support, training and development to within child centred practice. If you are enthusiastic about improving the lives and opportunities for children, young people and their families and want to work and develop your practice, then we want to hear from you!

Within Family Safeguarding we use motivational interviewing and a multi-agency approach, where Social Workers, Family Support Workers, Domestic Abuse Practitioners, Recovery Workers, Mental Health Practitioners, and Psychologists collaborate closely to support families to find their own solutions effectively, reducing the need for referrals to other agencies and improving outcomes for families.

We want to invest in you, and we have a clear vision around succession planning for our most talented workers. You will have the support and opportunities to progress your journey in Social Work.

At the heart of everything we do are the children and young people of Bury. We want staff who can form trusted relationships, working with the strengths in families and building on those assets, always looking for solutions to support families to live together safely and for children and young people to thrive.

Your role responsibilities:

• Provide high-quality social work practice to improve outcomes for children.
• Ensure that practice is underpinned by our practice standards, and that the Family Safeguarding model is embedded in our work with children and families.
• Recognise strengths, vulnerabilities and attitude to change to help keep children, young people and their families healthy, happy and safe.
• Ensure child-focussed assessments clearly bring out the voice of the child and they are reviewed regularly.
• Manage a complex case load, regularly undertaking direct work with children and families bespoke to address identified individual support needs and reduce the risk of harm.
• Build and maintain close working relationships with partners including Early Help and Prevention, education services, police and the NHS.
• Maintain up to date, detailed and accurate records of all cases through Liquid Logic and other recording tools, ensuring these are purposeful and jargon free.
• Attend court as and when necessary.
• Contribute to the overall development of services for children and their families.
• Uphold and promote the high standards of the social care profession outlined in Social Work England and maintain your Social Work registration in line with statutory regulations.

About you:

• You must hold a Social Work qualification such as Social Work Degree, Diploma in Social Work, CQSW, CSS or equivalent qualification and current Social Work England registration.
• Experience of working with children and families in need of help and protection, using a strengths-based approach.
• Experience of working with a broad spectrum of services within the field of social work with children and families either through social work experience or through training.
• Knowledge and understanding of relevant legislation with its implications for the delivery of social work services to children and families.
• Highly developed interpersonal and caring skills in order to meet the very demanding needs of children, young people and their families.
• Excellent analytical and judgemental skills to analyse and interpret complex information or situations and to solve difficult problems or develop solutions and plans.
• Good time management skills with the ability to work to deadlines and re-organise the workload to meet conflicting demands
• A commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

About Bury
The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare or children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Appointment may be subject to a satisfactory disclosure at the appropriate level under the Disclosure and Barring Service.
In line with safer recruitment, please ensure that your application/CV covers your full employment history and there is a reason noted for any gaps in employment. Successful candidates will be asked to provide relevant references for the past ten years and character references will not be accepted.

As a Corporate Parent, ensure that the work and services you deliver considers our care experienced young people, promotes their life chances empowers them to influence the policies, services, and decisions that affect them, champions their rights, and ensure they grow up in the best possible way.

Benefits of working for Bury Council
To hear about the benefits for working with Bury Council, please visit A good employer | greater jobs
We support employees to work with agility, where appropriate for the post and service requirements.
We are committed to Bury being an equal society that recognises values and embraces all people, regardless of any difference, for the skills, abilities and experiences they bring into the workforce and the wider community. Therefore, we guarantee an interview for disabled people, looked after children/ care leavers, armed forces personnel (including reservists and veterans) and carers of adults or disabled children if they meet the essential criteria.

Next steps

Come and join Team Bury!

If you feel you can use your experience to make a real difference, we would love to hear from you! For an informal discussion about the role please contact Kate Press, our Head of Service, on 0161 253 5023 / 07484010335 or K.Press@bury.gov.uk.