Location
Sutton, London Borough of Sutton

Hours
Full Time

Salary
£50,085 per annum

About the Borough
The London Borough of Sutton is located less than 30 minutes by train from Central London, with direct connections to London Victoria and London Bridge. Situated in zone 5, Sutton offers excellent transport links, award-winning parks and open spaces, low crime rates, affordable housing, and great schools. The borough is known for high levels of resident engagement and satisfaction, delivering quality services while addressing financial challenges and involving residents in key local issues and regeneration.

About the Service and Team
The Children’s Services department provides a supportive and inclusive environment for qualified social workers, offering specialist support on challenging cases, regular structured supervision, and encouraging active participation to ensure all voices are heard. The Fostering Team places children who cannot live with their birth families into foster care. Supervising Social Workers provide guidance, support, and feedback to foster carers to ensure high-quality care. Responsibilities include ensuring compliance with policies, managing safeguarding concerns, complaints, and allegations, and participating in meetings and foster carer reviews. The team works collaboratively with agencies, children, young people, and families, offering manageable caseloads, daily management support, and flexible working arrangements to promote work/life balance.

About the Role
We are seeking a Supervising Social Worker to join our Fostering Service within Children’s Social Care. The role involves supporting and supervising foster carers, ensuring adherence to policies and standards, collaborating with placement teams and other professionals to match children with foster households, completing annual review reports, presenting to the Fostering Panel, managing allegations and complaints, and delivering training linked to the Training, Support and Development Standards (TSDS). This position offers a starting salary of £43,680 with a £1,000 welcome bonus and retention bonuses up to £3,000 annually. Additional benefits include a car permit at Gibson Car Park, comprehensive training, and career progression opportunities.

Our mission is to empower children to live as independently as possible while safeguarding their well-being. This role offers a dynamic and diverse environment to expand your knowledge and skills in children’s social care. Our teams are known for creating outstanding care plans that prioritize the needs and voices of service users, integrating input from professionals, families, carers, and external agencies to achieve the best outcomes.

Our Offer to You
We provide a supportive, friendly, and collaborative environment to help you grow and develop your career. We encourage innovation and value your ideas. Benefits include 26-32 days annual leave plus bank holidays (pro-rata for part-time), enhanced family leave, two volunteering days per year, flexible working schemes, learning and development portals, discounts on local amenities, interest-free season ticket loans, Local Government Pension Scheme, bicycle loan and cycle to work schemes, electric vehicle leasing, and confidential health and wellbeing support.

Application Process
Apply online outlining your skills, abilities, and experience relevant to this role. We value authenticity and expect personalised responses demonstrating your motivation and alignment with our PRIDE values. We are committed to transparency and diversity, anonymising applications to reduce bias and encouraging diverse interview panels. We welcome applications from underrepresented groups and guarantee interviews for disabled applicants meeting essential criteria. Sponsorship availability is subject to eligibility and budget.

Additional Information
Sutton is a diverse and welcoming borough committed to creating a workforce that reflects the community it serves. We offer family-friendly policies, flexible working, staff engagement forums, and inclusive networks. We are a disability confident employer and an accredited London Living Wage employer.

Experience
- Experience working within fostering and children’s services is desirable
- Experience working in a multidisciplinary team setting
- Ability to manage high levels of emotional distress with compassion and professionalism

About you
- Outstanding communication skills
- Compassionate and person-centred approach to care
- Ability to work collaboratively with children, families, carers, and professionals
- Commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
- Enthusiastic about professional development and continuous learning

Qualifications
- Registered with Social Work England
- Degree in Social Care or a related field
- Sound knowledge and ability to deliver social work support to service users and their families
- Ability to communicate complex social issues clearly to both service users and professionals
- Ability to plan and coordinate social care plans and aspects of patient discharge