Supervising Social Worker

Supervising Social Worker

Location: Rawtenstall office base, with regional travel
Salary: £35,146 – £41,736
Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week
Contract: Permanent

Leaders in Care is recruiting two enthusiastic and skilled Supervising Social Workers for a well-established independent fostering service.

This is a rewarding opportunity for a confident, independent social worker to support both specialist and mainstream fostering placements. You will manage a caseload of foster carers, work closely with a dedicated team, and play a vital role in improving the outcomes and life chances of children and young people in care.

Both posts are office-based from Rawtenstall, with regular travel across the relevant regional patch.

The vacancies Vacancy 1 – Lancashire

Supporting a caseload of approximately 13 foster carers across:

Rawtenstall Blackburn Burnley Vacancy 2 – Greater Manchester & Yorkshire

Supporting a caseload of approximately 13 foster carers across:

Oldham Manchester Bradford Barnsley What you’ll be doing

As a Supervising Social Worker, you will provide high-quality supervision, support and development opportunities to foster carers, ensuring children’s care, development and placement needs are consistently met.

Key responsibilities include:

• Managing and supervising a caseload of foster carers within the agency’s fostering framework and regulatory requirements.
• Supporting carers to understand developmental trauma and respond effectively to children and young people who may display challenging behaviour.
• Ensuring children’s care plans are followed and their developmental, emotional and practical needs are met. Providing placement management, planning and intervention to help maintain strong placement stability and occupancy.
• Completing foster carer assessments, interviews and approval reports, including presenting to fostering panel where required.
• Supporting the recruitment and assessment of prospective foster carers, working closely with the Recruitment Manager.
• Contributing to foster carer recruitment activity and campaigns. Delivering or coordinating mandatory training, support groups and further development opportunities for foster carers.
• Building strong working relationships with local authority commissioning teams, social workers and other external professionals.
• Producing child progress reports, LAC review reports and other required monitoring information for local authorities.
• Undertaking direct work where needed and coordinating input from Social Work Assistants, Sessional Workers and other colleagues.
• Maintaining clear, accurate and timely records, including paperless case recording, diary management and statutory notifications.
• Completing regular self-audits of recording and reporting concerns or risks to management promptly.
• Participating in the out-of-hours duty rota to provide telephone support to foster carers.
• Working pattern and out-of-hours support 37.5 hours per week, full-time.
• Office attendance includes Team Tuesday, plus one additional office day per week to provide support and cover duty requirements.
• Out-of-hours duty is shared on a rota basis, approximately one week in every six.
• The on-call period runs from 5pm on Monday until 9am the following Monday, including weekend cover.
• On-call is paid at £25 per night
• . A manager is always available for support, with senior-management support also available when required.

About you

To be successful, you will be an empathetic, organised and resilient Social Worker with a genuine commitment to improving the lives of looked-after children.

You will ideally bring:

• A recognised Social Work qualification and current Social Work England registration. Experience in fostering, children’s services or supporting children and young people with complex needs.
• Experience of supervising, supporting, assessing or training foster carers.
• Strong knowledge of fostering regulations, safeguarding procedures and care planning.
• The ability to work independently while contributing positively within a close-knit team.
• Excellent written communication skills, including confidence producing assessments, reports and professional correspondence.
• Strong relationship-building skills with foster carers, local authorities and multi-disciplinary professionals. Confidence using IT systems, electronic recording systems, Microsoft Office and diary-management tools. Flexibility to travel across the allocated region and participate in the out-of-hours rota.

Why apply?

This is an opportunity to join a supportive fostering team where your work will directly contribute to stable, nurturing placements and better outcomes for children and young people. You’ll have a manageable caseload, structured management support and the chance to develop your experience across specialist and mainstream fostering services.

Apply today through nathan@leadersincare.co.uk  to find out more about either Supervising Social Worker vacancy.