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Job Title: Consultant Social Worker - Family Safeguarding Children in Care
Starting Salary: £48,226 + £7,146 market enhancement pay, progressing to £53,460 + £6,984 market enhancement pay per annum - pay award pending
Hours: 37
Base Location: Stevenage with East of County coverage
Contract Type: FTC/Secondment - Maternity Cover to November 2026
Directorate: Childrens Services

If you’re a Consultant Social Worker seeking a fresh challenge, this is a unique chance to strengthen your expertise and accelerate your professional growth.

Joining our Reunification or Edge of Care Team means working on a pioneering extension of the Family Safeguarding model, supporting children at critical points and helping families stay together. You’ll gain hands-on experience in trauma-informed practice, non-violence resistance, ARC framework and Ambit, collaborate and learn from a multi-agency team of specialists, and apply evidence-based approaches.

This role offers valuable line management responsibilities, and exposure to complex, high-profile work - giving you skills that will set you apart for future leadership roles. It’s an excellent opportunity to broaden your portfolio, influence practice, and shape the future of social work in Hertfordshire.

About the team

Following the successful implementation of Family Safeguarding for Children in Care program, the project is expanding to include support to children and young people who are at risk of entering care.

We are recruiting a Consultant Social Worker to work within our Staying Together Team.

The Family Safeguarding model centres around a multi-disciplinary team who are highly trained in Motivational Interviewing, a counselling approach that creates confidence in parents to change their behaviours that cause harm to their children.

For more information on Hertfordshire’s Family Safeguarding model visit www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/familysafeguarding

The team is expanding both in size and in operating hours to accommodate demand for support from our families outside of the traditional 9am – 5pm. This extension of the Family Safeguarding model to children in care and at the edge of care, empowers families, and their extended networks to help children achieve the best outcomes by having a multi-disciplinary team of mental health, substance misuse, domestic abuse, neurodiverse, trauma informed specialists all working in one team, alongside children’s social workers, adolescent practitioners and life coaches.

About the role

This team is part of the Safeguarding Children in Care model. You will work alongside partner agencies, as well as, the Trauma Hub and Family Group Conferencing Service.

The Team is a non-case holding intensive intervention service; we work alongside the Area Teams who take responsibility for the overall support and planning for young people and families we work with. Our intervention is such that we may need to respond to crisis which means we have to have the willingness of a flexible approach to respond to the needs of families.

The post holder will work effectively within a diverse team, with a rich range of experiences and specialisms and a passion for direct work with young people as well as offering support to parents.

Key activities of the role will see you;

• Deliver fortnightly reflective case discussions
• Support the Team Manager to manage the team, including providing supervision to some alternatively qualified workers and multi-disciplinary colleagues through group supervision, alongside having families that you are directly working with.
• Manage individuals and groups of staff including monthly 1:1 personal supervision
• Engage in Non-violence Resistance Training
• Facilitate multi-disciplinary network meetings to agree plans for families that are you children and young people’s best interests
• Chair review meetings and support partitioners to develop support and contingency plans.
• Respond to risks of criminal and sexual exploitation
• Support children, young people and their families who are in crisis to stay together and to be reunified when it is safe to.
• Work flexibly to respond to the needs of families when they need it.
• Reviewing the quality of support offered to families by the team and to ensure there is accurate and comprehensive recording. The post holder will contact families on a regular basis to obtain feedback.
• Work directly with children and young people (10+) and their families to achieve agreed goals through coaching, parenting interventions, and relationship-based practice.

If you are looking for an opportunity to shape the service and the practice within the team it is an exciting time to join us. Your development is important to us and we are keen to support you to grow your skills and harness your passions.

This role will be subject to an on-call rota during extended hours. You will join a group of 8 managers who will be responsible for ensuring workers have access to a manager over the extended service hours of 9am - 10 pm weekdays, and weekend 2pm - 10 pm.

Contracted hours of work are 37-hour week (Full Time Equivalent), however there is an expectation that practitioners and managers will work flexibly to meet the needs of the children, young people and families being supported. Time will need to be taken back for any hours worked over this.

About you

Essential:

• Qualified and registered Social worker with Social Work England.
• Proficient in IT systems
• Ability to use a recording system such as LCS, Word and PowerPoint.
• Understanding and experience of working in safeguarding
• Experience in supporting children, young people and their families with complex needs and responding to risks of criminal and sexual exploitation
• Be trauma aware and knowledgeable about how acute distress impacts on children and young people, and their families.
• Full driving licence and regular access to a vehicle.

This job role is within the Health and Social Care Services, level HSC12 job profile. Please locate this via: Job profiles - Health and social care

To hear more about this opportunity please contact Jenna Keen (jenna.keen@hertfordshire.gov.uk) or Joanne Marsh (joanne.marsh@hertfordshire.gov.uk) for an informal discussion about the role.

Interviews: Interviews will be offered on an ad hoc basis. You will be contacted within 7 days of your application to confirm the outcome - please look out for an email.

Benefits of working for us

Benefits of working for us

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Secondment
This role is open to secondments for eligible employees who work for HCC. If you wish to apply on a secondment basis, you must have your line manager’s approval before submitting your application. You will be asked to confirm this within your application form. If you are not eligible for a secondment (e.g., you are currently on a fixed‑term contract that would end before this positions ends) or you indicate that your manager cannot support a secondment, your application will be considered on a fixed‑term contract basis instead.

Additional information

We are changing

Hertfordshire County Council is undergoing Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). If you are employed by Hertfordshire County on 1 April 2028, it is expected that most roles will transfer to the newly-created unitary councils on existing terms and conditions under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings – Protection of Employment) principles.

LGR is one of the biggest changes we will face in a generation. It will reshape how we work and how services are organised and gives us a real opportunity to build something better. To find out more, visit https://www.hertfordshire-lgr.co.uk/

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

Safeguarding
This role has been identified as requiring a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

Driving required
You’ll need to have the ability to drive and/or travel around Hertfordshire, either using your own mode of transport or a company car to travel to other locations.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.