Lead Social Worker for Exploitation (Advanced Practitioner)

• Flexible working available, using a hybrid model and in line with the needs of the service - working from home and your contracted work base.
• 30 days' annual leave (plus bank holidays)
• Great opportunities for career progression within Somerset
• 1 x full time permanent position for 37 hours per week in East Somerset
• 1 x maternity cover fixed term position for 37 hours per week, until 31/7/2025, in West Somerset

Our Exploitation and ROTH Team and Offer:

We have an established Preventing Exploitation Team and offer in Somerset. Our exploitation team sits within our ‘prevention and youth justice’ service directorate, where we promote active co-working, collaboration and dynamic response.

Our current team is being further developed to enhance our response to exploitation and risks outside of the home.

Our key indicators link to: Child Sexual Exploitation; Child Criminal Exploitation; Serious Youth Violence; County Lines; Anti-Social Behaviour.

Collaborative and multi-agency working is essential.

Our Lead Social workers have the opportunity to develop their leadership and management, oversee consultation, mapping and multiagency panels. They also hold a small caseload of children. They promote and role-model good practice and deliver training and development.

This is a dynamic and creative social work role in a specialist, skilled and driven team.

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

As an Advanced Practitioner, it will be your responsibility to skilfully manage complex work with the most vulnerable children in our community and in our care, whilst mentoring and supporting less experienced colleagues to grow and develop as practitioners as well as have line management roles within this team.

Through pro-active, multi-agency working you’ll work with a range of service providers, including our secondment team members across youth justice and close working with our missing children team. The aim is to facilitate the provision of a needs-led service and create positive outcomes.

We’ll look to you to ensure all services are child focused, using a range of therapeutic skills and interventions to make sure that children are protected, risk reduced and they are supported to reach their potential.

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

You will:

• be educated to degree level, and Social Work England registered.
• have demonstrable experience in the field, with a commitment to maintaining and expanding your social work knowledge and skills. Ideally you will have PEPS 1 but if not then supervisory experience is needed.
• have excellent interpersonal and communication skills allowing you to work effectively in partnership with other agencies and teams. Alongside this, you’ll have excellent time keeping and a keen eye for detail, as you produce accurate reports and quality assure the work of less experienced colleagues.

Our journey in Somerset is far from complete but we know that what we intend to achieve will grow, inspire, enable and unite the people who work with us. We want you to invest in this journey as much as we will invest in you, through the training, togetherness, progression and engagement you’ll enjoy here.

We are 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 £41,771 to £46,142 per annum

For further information or an informal discussion about this exciting opportunity, please contact Chloe Deverell, chloe.deverell@somerset.gov.uk

Provisional interview date is 20/10/2025

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.