Social Worker

Job Title: Kinship Social Worker

Hourly Rate: £33.30

Work Pattern: Hybrid - Face to Face visits to carers

Location: Shropshire Council

The Role

A clear focus to provide support and permanence for the looked after children of Shropshire. The team’s aims are to identity, assess and support potential kinship foster carers through their journey of becoming approved foster carers, to obtaining Special Guardianship Orders where appropriate.

Key Requirements

• Asses and carry a caseload of kinship foster carers with the long-term aim of supporting them to secure permanence through Special Guardianship.
• Support and supervise carers as they move towards obtaining a Special Guardianship Order, providing permanence for Shropshire’s looked after children and young people.
• Supporting our carers to ensure a positive, safe and nurturing experiences for children and young people while supporting the connected families towards permanence.
• To contribute to the on-going, assessment, development and training of kinship foster carers to care for young people who are accommodated by the local authority, and to promote the necessary support needed to enable the kinship foster families to achieve permanence through SGO.
• To provide direct supervision and support to approved kinship foster carers in line with fostering legislation, attending, and supporting them in meetings such as CLA reviews, transition meetings, care planning meetings, PEP meetings and any other relevant fostering or CLA meetings related to the child.
• To undertake kinship fostering assessments (Form C/K), viability assessments when required, special guardianship assessments, and on occasion other assessments within appropriate time scales
• To be reflective, restorative and practice with a therapeutic trauma informed approach.
• Participating in regular supervision or consultation with the team manager ensuring that they are always made aware of significant issues in respect of kinship foster carers, children and families.
• To be available out of normal office hours to develop carer forums for the purpose of training and of support to recruitment if required.
• To be able to undertake visits and assessments out of county when required, which may on occasions require overnight stays.

Skills & Experience

• A qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England.
• Committed to supporting children, young people and their families and has the resilience to go that extra mile to ensure they achieve their potential.
• UK driving license
• 3 Years post qualifying experience
• We are looking for qualified social workers who have enthusiasm, positivity, flexibility, the ability to work to tight times scales and have a commitment to contributing to the development of the team and our foster carers