Children and Families

 

At Cheshire West and Chester, our Children and Families service wants to invest in you, and support and develop you in a successful career in social work.

 

We want you to be part of a workforce that is committed and motivated to making a difference, safeguarding and improving the outcomes for our most vulnerable children and young people, through aspirational, creative and child-focussed ways of working.

 

Cheshire West and Chester Council is an award-winning authority. Our Winsford and Northwich Children in Need team won Team of the Year at the Annual National Social Worker of the Year Awards in 2016. Our recent Joint Targeted Area Inspection also highlights our "stable and skilled workforce", with recognised "clear planning for career progression and a wider range of development opportunities”.

 

In 2018, we were approved as a Partner in Practice with the Department of Education and have won Overall Council of the Year and Best Innovation awards in 2018. In 2022, the focussed visit from Ofsted recognised we had continued to strengthen quality of practice.

 

About the Children and Families service

 

Our Children and Families service is aspirational and strives for excellence in all we do. Social workers say they feel safe, supported and enjoy working with us.

 

We work through a trauma lens, using our practice model ‘Our Way of Working’ to understand the impact of trauma and how we can respond to improve outcomes, through a whole multi-agency approach in becoming trauma informed, supporting sustainable solutions for families and recovery from trauma. We see this makes a difference to the lives of children and families.

 

Our culture promotes transparency, reflection and learning. Senior leaders and managers are visible and available for practitioner support, they share the ownership of risk, where we encourage creative, child-focussed planning. We have a well-developed progression programme and a ‘grow our own’ approach to development at all levels.

 

Children’s Social Care is delivered across three different districts - Ellesmere Port, Northwich and Winsford, and Chester.  There are Children in Need and Child Protection and Court teams in each of these districts, working together with our Permanence Hub. All teams are supported by effective and innovative business support. Other teams include the following.

 

• The ‘Front Door’ - Our effective multi-agency Integrated Access and Referral Team (i-ART)

• Children in Need teams

• Child Protection and Court teams

• Children with Disabilities team and Transitions team

• Permanence Hub (Long term looked after children)

• Provider Services

• Access to Resources team (care placements, specialist support and assessment commission)

• Intervention Hub

 

Further information on these teams and services can be found in our Social Work Offer document, linked below.

 

Join the team

 

We are looking for committed, creative and resilient newly qualified social workers, experienced social workers, senior practice leads and team managers to join our supportive and dedicated children’s social care service, to ensure that children and young people get the best start in life.

 

If you choose to join us, you will be an important member of a close-knit and supportive team. We will invest in you and support you through Supervision and Reflective Practice, because we want our social workers in Cheshire West and Chester to feel they have a working environment where they are enabled to do the job, safely, supported and professionally challenged. We hold a number of social work engagement sessions throughout the year, including Social Work Forums and Practice Point, where social workers are encouraged to be involved in service and practice developments.

 

At Cheshire West and Chester, we are committed to achieving a work life balance in this challenging and rewarding expertise of social work practice. As a social worker with the Council, you will benefit from many rewards and benefits.

 

Rewards and benefits

​

• Competitive salary - We offer a competitive salary based on your qualifications and experience

• Social Work England (SWE) - We will pay your SWE fees and support you to meet your continued registration requirements

• Grow your own culture - We have a career progression structure comprising three levels of progression programmes to support your professional development

• Refer-A-Friend scheme – Financial reward scheme where employees are financially rewarded for introducing social worker friends into our employment

• Car parking and allowances - You will be provided with a free parking space at any of our Council Offices you visit and you can also claim up to 45 pence per mile travelled for business purposes