Supervising Social Worker | Oxford/Somerset

Compass Fostering are looking for two knowledgeable Social Workers to join our team in the west of England. You’ll share our commitment to delivering high quality services for children and young people and support our foster parents to do this too.

You will manage a carer base across one of the following regions: Oxford / Somerset / Gloucestershire / Worcester.

This is an exciting opportunity for a skilled Social Worker to influence and effect change within our dynamic organisation. We want you to be an active participant, looking to contribute to positive change within the organisation whilst developing your career.

Compass make sure to develop and tailor packages of care to each of our young people, giving you professional pride knowing that you’re making a positive difference every day.

Whether you’re an established SSW or looking for something more, our teams at Compass encourage and champion your drive to succeed

The benefits of joining Compass Fostering

• Career Development – We offer many career paths, recognising hard work & supporting you into senior roles.
• Low Caseloads – You will typically be responsilbe for up to 13 fostering families.
• Competitive Salary – using structured pay grades based on your training and experience.
• Car Allowance – £100 p/m car allowance to allow you to work flexibly from different locations.
• Wellbeing – Access to therapeutic wellbeing sessions with our Therapeutic Services team.
• Bonuses – receive £200 service award on your two-year anniversary, plus up to £500 special recognition service for outstanding practice.
• Medicash – Cashback for various medical appointments & treatments with MediCash.
• Life Assurance Scheme – 3 x annual salary after successful completion of your probation review.
• Increased Holiday – 27 days increasing gradually to 30 days after 4 years’ service.

About Us

Compass Fostering is a part of our wider community, providing fostering, residential, educational, and therapeutic services for the young people in our care.

We are a progressive child centred service, putting the wellbeing of our children and young people at the front and core of everything we do.

We are proud to offer good and outstanding services in many of our regions over England and Wales, championing our staff and teams who help us towards these outcomes.

We’re a values-based children’s service, meaning that everything we do is underpinned by our REACH approach. It stands for Resilience, Education, Acceptance, Child-centred and Holistic; it’s a framework based on resilience theory, attachment theory and aspects of social pedagogy. We believe that this helps us to provide bespoke, consistent therapeutic care for each child, whilst supporting our staff and foster carers to ensure every young person has the best possible future.

It is essential that you

• Have an approach that is reflective and creative when working with our foster carers and young people to inspire them to reach their full potential.
• Can manage your own caseload of typically 13 fostering families, giving support and guidance when necessary and help them to develop their skills.
• Are committed to provide wrap around support to our foster carers by participating in an out of hours on call service.
• Are passionate and want to actively contribute to the growth and development of the Fostering service.
• Have a relevant professional qualification in Social Work.
• Are Social Work England (SWE) registered.
• Have worked in a fostering related social work role and /or child social care, such as a looked after children’s team.
• Have experience and can demonstrate evidence of identifying the needs of young people.
• Have a good knowledge of fostering regulations, childcare law and safeguarding issues.
• Can make objective professional assessments of children and young people.
• Have access to a car and a valid driving licence.

Our recruitment process aims to create and maintain a safe workforce and contains robust vetting procedures. The successful applicants will be offered a role subject to satisfactory references and an enhanced DBS check. Please note that Compass reserves the right to close this vacancy early upon receipt of sufficient applications.

The Compass Community values equality and diversity across our workforce and aims to ensure our staff community is reflective of the diversity of the children and young people within our care. In support of this commitment, we welcome applications from individuals of Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds.