Good question.

Well, for a start, we’re a hugely ambitious council, committed to improving lives for the residents, communities and businesses of Somerset.

We have an exciting opportunity for a full-time or part-time Social Worker to join our Wider Safeguarding team in Mendip. The key purpose of the role is to work alongside families to support and develop motivations for change and to improve the outcomes for our most vulnerable young people and families. 

Within the Wider Safeguarding Team, you will work with children and families who are experiencing challenges around complex neglect, sexual harm, physical harm, child exploitation (risks outside of the home) and also parental learning difficulties.

Here in Somerset, our manageable caseloads let you be the innovative and creative social worker you want to be – undertaking direct work with children and young people to hear their voice and understand their experiences. You will work with parents and the wider family network, with access to Family Group Conferencing, to support them to identify strengths, tackle problems and change interactions and behaviours. With permanent and experienced Team Managers, you'll be well supported with regular and reflective group and personal supervision.

You will need to be a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England and have substantial experience working with children and families in social work. 

You will be passionate about relationship-based social work, proud of your profession, and able to reflect and think creatively about how you can build relationships to make a difference to children and families.

You will be a competent IT user, able to use or learn to use LiquidLogic.

You will need to hold a full driving licence and have access to your own vehicle as travel is required.

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more

For an informal chat about working within our Wider Safeguarding team, please contact Lorna Mawbey, Team Manager, on 07900 226765 or via email at lorna.mawbey@somerset.gov.uk.

We'd love the opportunity to arrange and hold interviews ahead of the closing date for suitable candidates. If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button. We can’t wait to hear from you!

In this role you will require a criminal background check via Disclosure and Barring Service.