Vacancy Description

There’s never been a better time to join Achieving for Children (AfC), AfC fostering is a unique social enterprise of three owning Local Authorities; London Borough of Richmond, Royal Borough of Kingston and Royal Borough of Windsor Maidenhead, we are a registered Independent Fostering Agency with Ofsted and have two team locations; Kingston and Maidenhead. Achieving for Children is ever expanding especially through the fostering service, we offer a great training program for staff and carers. We are looking for enthusiastic, detail orientated people who can join our workforce and continue to support our growth and improvement.

About the Role:

The Social Workers role will be to work with colleagues to provide the full range of fostering services, including recruitment, form F assessments, training and supervision/support of approved carers, duty services, additionally the fostering service in Maidenhead complete Form C and Special Guardianship Assessments for the Royal Borough children services. They will undertake a range of work to safely place and work to achieve permanency plans for children. Achieving for Children work within the framework of signs of safety, and we place a strong emphasis on support, as well as peer group supervision sessions. There are opportunities to be involved in the development of foster carer training and support groups. Currently we are working in a hybrid system with some working from home, office-based working and community-based visiting.

As a social enterprise owned by three local authorities, we offer the freedoms of a social enterprise with the employment benefits of local government. We offer a range of excellent staff benefits, including generous annual leave entitlements, cycle to work scheme, annual season ticket loan, childcare vouchers, and discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres and much more.

The successful candidate will have access to:

• Excellent learning and development opportunities and schemes of support.
• A competitive and desirable retention package (to include a generous local government pension scheme).
• Retention of continuous service benefits, for those moving from a local government post.
• A clear progression path when key qualification milestones are reached.
• Tools and models to support practice, including Signs of Safety.
• Reflective supervision from an experienced management team.

You will find out more about our organisation at https://www.achievingforchildren.org.uk/

Start dates

Achieving for Children have Fixed Start Dates, candidates are advised to prepare for this should a job offer be accepted to ensure eligible continuous service is not affected.

Achieving for Children is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will be required to undertake a Criminal Record Check.

Closing date: 22 August 2021

Interviews: w/c 23 & w/c 30 August 2021

Further information on this vacancy

• AfC Fixed Start Dates
• Job Description/Person Specification