Consultant Social Worker - Building Bridges

Job Title: Consultant Social Workers – Building Bridges
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 (Staying together East) and Hemel Hempstead (Reunification West)
Contract Type: FTC/Secondment - Maternity Cover to December 2026
Directorate: Children’s Services

Vacancies:

• Staying Together East (x1)
• Reunification West (x1)

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 as well as children and young people in care who can safely return home.

We are recruiting a Consultant Social Worker to work within our Staying Together Team and a Consultant Social Worker to work within our West Reunification 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;

• Facilitate fortnightly reflective case discussions
• Support the Team Manager to manage the team, including providing supervision to some alternatively qualified workers alongside supporting families that you are directly working with.
• Manage individual staff including monthly 1:1 personal supervision and supporting performance
• 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.
• Support Children, young people and their families to reunify, when it is safe to do so.
• Work flexibly to respond to the needs of families when they need it.
• Review 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 ([email removed]) or Joanne Marsh ([email removed]) for an informal discussion about the role.

Interview