Senior Social Work Assistant

We have an opportunity for a full time Senior Social Work Assistant within our Children Looked After team based in Taunton for up to 7 months. This is an ideal opportunity for a student Social Worker to gain valuable experience of working in a Children Looked After team prior to applying for a role as a Newly Qualified Social Worker.

We can offer you:

• Friendly and supportive team to progress your career within Children’s Social Care
• Experience of working alongside Social Workers, Leaving Care Workers, and other professionals to support children, carers and families.
• Strengths and relationship-based approaches to underpin your work with children and families
• Regular high-quality systemic personal supervision with experienced Team Managers
• Flexible working within our teams, including consideration of 9 day fortnight and other flexible working approaches.
• fixed term contract, for up to 7 months and 37 hours per week
• 25 days annual leave, increasing to 28 after 5 years service, plus bank holidays - pro rata for 7 months

We cannot offer sponsorship for this role. You must already have the right to work in the UK without needing visa sponsorship.

We’re working to improve the lives of people in Somerset – and you’ll be a key part of that.

We are looking for someone who is passionate and enthusiastic to support qualified Social Workers to provide a high quality service for all children and families supported by our service.

Supporting Social Workers working with Children Looked After, you will have the opportunity to support positive changes to children’s lives, and help to keep them safe and settled within their homes. As a Senior Social Work Assistant, you will not have statutory responsibility, but you will work directly with children, and complete tasks of gathering information and photos for life story books, building relationships, providing other practical support, including supporting carers and parents, so you will need to have good relationship based skills. You will also be responsible for inputting information onto an electronic record so you are required to have a good standard of written skills and ability to use technology.

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be.

You will:

• have experience of social care, but not necessarily in paid employment.
• have NVQ Level 3 in Health and Social Care or relevant qualification/experience.
• be literate and numerate to GCSE level or equivalent.

You will need to be living within easy distance to our office base within Taunton and be willing to travel to where children are living, which can be anywhere around the UK. You will need to have a driving licence, access to a vehicle for work purposes and be able to speak fluent English.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

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.

The salary range for this role is £25,989 to £28,142 per annum.

Dependent on interest, interviews may take place prior to the closing date for applications.

For an informal chat about the role, please contact Team Managers: Gemma Cridland on 07811 309857 or Maggie Rees on 07976 696137.

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button - we can’t wait to hear from you.

This post requires a criminal background check via the Disclosure procedure.