Experienced Children’s Social Workers (Dorset)

Salary details: £ - £42503

Experienced Social Workers

Full time Flexible working

Salary: £30,095 (Level 1) Up to £40,578

(depending on level and experience) 

Dorchester, Blandford, Sturminster Newton, Ferndown,

Wareham, Weymouth

Join us and be a part of Children’s Services which have recently been judged as Good with Outstanding Leadership by Ofsted, an achievement of which we are incredibly proud.

Our model of working, Dorset Children Thrive, enables us to:

- Put children first

- Get it right first time

- Make services easy to access

- Develop our skilled and confident workforce

- Provide good quality and efficient services

- Measure success

As part of our model, we have developed multi-agency Locality teams bringing together colleagues from across Early Help, Children's Social Care, Educational Psychology, SEND and Inclusion services under the leadership of Heads of Locality and Strategy.

Our Locality teams are based within 6 communities across Dorset - Chesil, West, Dorchester, Purbeck, East, and North. As a Social Worker working in the locality teams, you will be supporting children and their families through assessment of their needs and planning at a child in need, child protection or care level to enable better outcomes.

About you:

You will have a Social Work qualification, be registered with Social Work England and be able to fulfil the travel requirements of the post. If you have completed your ASYE and/or have experience of working in statutory social care services, we would like to hear from you.

Dorset Council: A great place to work

Working for us  you will find a host of exciting challenges, giving you plenty of opportunities for personal and professional growth. You will enjoy the scope to question how we do things, think creatively, and come up with new, better, more innovative approaches through our Diagonal Slice . Diagonal Slice is Children’s Services’ employee forum where we co – produce changes to the organisation we are a part of.

What our people say

"It was great to feel listened to about the big issues and developments within Children's Services"

​​​​​​​“I am proud of the service I work in, for their commitment to children & young people, working hard to collaborate with colleagues and agencies to achieve good outcomes.”

You will:

• have access to a range of employee benefits
• be part of an organisation that supports each other to grow and succeed
• have access to range of training opportunities which will help with your personal development and career progression

We are challenging ourselves to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation. We recognise that recruitment and inclusion of individuals with diverse skills, perspectives and backgrounds will bring real strength to the council and our communities. We have a commitment to equality and welcome applications from everyone.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role.

We are keen to make our interviews accessible. Let us know on your job application if you have a disability and need any reasonable adjustments.

We also look for applicants who share our commitment to our behaviours. We will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

If appointed, the personal information we collect from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found at https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.

This post involves working with children and having access to significant information about them and will therefore be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service check. See our policy on the employment of ex-offenders.

Friends & Family Referral Scheme

The friends and family referral scheme applies to this post. If an employee recommended this post to you mention them when asked on your application form. They will give you all the information you need.

Employees can share this advert by using the button links alongside the job title.

Relocation expenses package

A generous relocation package is payable, of which up to £8,000 (of HMRC eligible elements) are free of tax. We can offer you help to move whether you are looking to buy or rent, depending on your circumstances.

Our package includes:

• an initial advance of up to £2,500 payable when you start
• help towards fees associated with buying/selling (up to £6,500)
• an option to receive help towards your rent or mortgage in the first two years

This role is UK based and we will need to establish your Right to Work as part of the appointment process.

We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant.

We cannot accept CVs in the place of an application form as we need the same range of information from all our candidates.

Find out more about how to apply. 

Contact details

Please click here for further information, or for an informal discussion please call  Liz Wood, Principal Social Worker on 01305 225638 (email liz.wood@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk). 

Interviews will be held on 13th April 2023. 

Nb. Once this post has closed, the job description and person specification will no longer be available to view.