Location
London Borough of Hounslow

Hours
Full Time (hours not specified)

Salary
£57,150 per annum

About the Role
Join Hounslow’s Safeguarding and Support Team as an Advanced Social Work Practitioner, providing expert leadership on complex and high-risk cases while driving excellent outcomes for children and young people. You will act as a practice lead, mentoring and coaching colleagues, leading on a court work specialist area of practice, and supporting high-quality decision-making across the service. Working closely with managers and leadership teams, you will contribute to quality assurance, reflective supervision, service development, and the continuous improvement of safeguarding practice.

Safeguarding and Support team’s key purpose is to protect and promote the welfare of children and young people, ensuring they are safe and supported to thrive. The impact on children and families is life-changing, helping families overcome challenges, reducing risk, and improving long-term outcomes for children.

Within the team, roles include Social Workers at different levels, Senior Practitioners who provide advanced expertise and mentoring, and Assistant Team Managers who oversee practice quality. You will report to an Assistant Team Manager and work closely with multi-disciplinary professionals to deliver high-quality safeguarding services for children and young people in Hounslow.

As a Social Worker in our Safeguarding and Support Team, you will:
- Keep children safe by undertaking or contributing to child protection investigations and providing clear assessments and recommendations to support decision-making.
- Assess the needs of children and families, including pre-birth assessments, ensuring their views are considered and comprehensive plans are agreed wherever possible.
- Work collaboratively with professionals across Children’s Services and other multi-disciplinary teams to deliver effective plans in the best interests of children and families.
- Produce high-quality verbal and written reports for meetings and legal proceedings.
- Gather information through interviews, observations, and engagement with families and partner agencies.
- Develop, implement, and review care and protection plans within statutory frameworks, including child protection and pathway plans.
- Fulfil statutory responsibilities, such as visiting children, arranging reviews, and preparing court reports.
- Conduct ongoing, evidence-based assessments of complex needs and risks to ensure robust safeguarding.

About Us
We’d love you to join us at the London Borough of Hounslow! Our people are deeply committed to providing excellent services to our residents, doing all we can to make lives as good as they can be. We are an outstanding council, serving an outstanding borough. With brilliant, visionary leadership, a dynamic Cabinet and a can-do culture, we’ve built strong partnerships which have transformed how we serve one of London’s most diverse boroughs. Hounslow is the world in one place and full of potential. We are stepping up for our residents like never before.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
We live by five core values: Lead with Heart, Do New, Pass on the Power, Harness the Mix and Be a Rock. All our work has equality, diversity and inclusion at its very heart, best articulated in “Harness the Mix”. It's about breaking down barriers between our parts and people and unlocking the problem-solving power of our amazing mix of minds. We serve a diverse community, we have a diverse workforce and we are committed to being an inclusive employer.

We work hard to create representation across our workforce and leadership community, we have thriving employee network groups and our learning and development programmes help us lead, model and breathe ways of working that eliminate inequality, inequity, injustice and bias.

As part of this and under our commitments as a Disability Confident Employer, we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates. There’s space for you to tell us what you need within our application form.

Our Benefits
If you join us, you’ll have access to a range of employee benefits.

Experience
- Minimum 3 years post-qualifying experience in Children's Social Care.
- Experience managing complex child protection, pre-proceedings, and court cases.
- Expert knowledge of relevant childcare legislation, statutory guidance, Public Law Outline (PLO) processes, and legal frameworks affecting children and families.
- Skilled in completing robust, analytical, and evidence-based assessments that support effective decision-making and withstand legal scrutiny.
- Extensive experience preparing high-quality court statements, care plans, and reports, and presenting evidence confidently in court.
- Proven ability to provide professional leadership, mentoring, and coaching to social workers.
- Strong analytical skills and professional curiosity with the ability to assess risk and make defensible decisions.
- Strong understanding of permanence planning including rehabilitation, kinship care, Special Guardianship Orders, adoption, and long-term care arrangements.
- Confident advising and supporting practitioners on legal thresholds, care planning, and complex casework.
- Ability to build positive and effective working relationships with legal representatives, CAFCASS, health professionals, education services, police, and other partner agencies.
- Commitment to reflective practice, continuous learning, and driving service improvement through quality assurance and audit activity.

About You
You are a dedicated social work professional who is passionate about safeguarding children and young people. You demonstrate leadership and mentoring skills, have excellent communication abilities, and are committed to delivering high-quality, child-centred services. You thrive in a collaborative environment and are motivated to contribute to continuous service improvement.

Qualifications
Qualified Social Worker with relevant post-qualifying experience in Children’s Social Care.