Welcome to Salford

This is a really exciting time to join Salford on our journey to outstanding. Our ambition is for all children and their families to benefit from high quality and purposeful relationships with professionals. We want to ensure we create an environment for our Social Workers to deliver the very best services; reduced caseloads and space to deliver interventions is key to outstanding service delivery and these are key priority areas for our Social Work teams.

Joining us now gives you an important role in developing and transforming our practice, strengthening our frontline social work services to deliver the best possible outcomes. Learn about our vision from Zoe Fearon, Assistant Director for Children’s Social Care (Adobe PDF format, 194kb).

Apply to join the team and make Salford your home to grow

Social Worker

You will work directly with children and their carers, effectively managing a caseload with varying degrees of complexity. You will use a range of knowledge, skills and interventions as required for each case. You will work in accordance with national and local policies and procedures, and use the law, regulatory and statutory guidance to inform practice decisions. Read the role profile and apply now for one of our Social Worker roles.

Social Worker – Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) Team

You will be based in a high school and will develop good working relationships with staff in the school, particularly the Designated Safeguarding Lead. You will work directly with children and their carers using a range of knowledge, skills and interventions as required, in accordance with statutory responsibilities to secure positive outcomes for children, including educational outcomes via your work in the school. You will work with school staff and contribute to improved decision making and quality of referrals to social care. Read the role profile and apply now for one of our Social Worker – SWIS Team role.

Advanced Social Worker

You will effectively manage a limited caseload of complex cases in accordance with statutory responsibilities. You will be responsible for the supervision of qualified social work staff and trainees and contribute to the development of other staff including other social workers. You will effectively manage safeguarding risk including child protection, working within a multi-agency environment, providing a professional social work service. You will secure access to services, negotiating and challenging other professionals and organisations to provide the help required. Read the role profile and apply now for one of our Advanced Social Worker roles.

Practice Manager

You will have oversight and management of the day to day delivery of all aspects of the Social Work team. Your role will have a focus on the quality and improvement of social work and service delivery. You will be responsible for ensuring documentation, record keeping, accounting and communication is maintained, and effective information strategies and systems are in place to enable appropriate sharing of data and information. You will ensure the service is facilitating effective participation of children, young people and families and that their lived experiences are known, understood and inform plans. Read the role profile and apply now for our Practice Manager role.

Practice Manager – Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) Team

You will be responsible for the day to day management of the SWIS Team. You will provide meaningful supervision to the SWIS Team on a monthly basis, supporting the development of new practice models. You will embed business priorities across the service to ensure the best outcomes are achieved for children and young people. You will manage a reduced caseload as Practice Manager.  Read the role profile and apply now for our Practice Manager – SWIS Team role.

Service Manager

You will be responsible for leading the service and will focus on ensuring all work is outcome based and achieved within statutory expectations. You will manage organisational change and development requirements considering internal and external trends and influences, by keeping up to date with all new legislation, guidance and Corporate and Directorate policies and procedures. You will lead on effectively addressing the areas of learning from the Ofsted inspection, to ensure good and outstanding services are in place for all children, young people and families. Read the role profile and apply now for one of our Service Manager roles.

Child Protection Coordinator

You will chair Initial Child Protection Conferences and Child Protection Reviews using the Signs of Safety Model, as well as inter-agency strategy meetings in respect of specific child protection matters. You will offer expert advice, support, consultation and mediation on practice issues to Children’s Services staff on individual cases. Read the role profile and apply now for our Child Protection Coordinator role.

Practice Manager – Child Protection Coordinator Team

Working within the Safeguarding and Quality Assurance Unit, you will oversee the day to day management to the Child Protection Coordinators team. You will provide meaningful supervision to the CP Coordinators and support them to transition to new practice models. You will embed business priorities across the service to ensure the best outcomes are achieved for children and young people. Read the role profile and apply now for the Safeguarding Practice Manager role. 

We are happy to answer further questions about any of our roles, please email us at WFD@salford.gov.uk if you would like to arrange an informal chat with a team member.

Why join Salford’s Children Services?

Our vision is to deliver a better and fairer Salford for all, and that includes our council staff - everyone at the council cares and everyone counts. We are determined to evolve and improve by listening to you. To ensure that we are delivering the best possible service to our families and community, we are now expanding our Children and Families team.

We offer a supportive and nurturing environment which enables individuals to grow as autonomous practitioners. We have adapted our ways of working through the use of technology and provide a blended approach to working with access to a range of office spaces across the city as well a home working. Together we will keep developing ways of working that support you in your role.

Salford has a commitment to the welfare of all staff members, and we offer a comprehensive package of well-being, resilience and support as well as promoting work life balance in all areas. Find out more about the great benefits package that you will access if you join us.

We want you to join us in our journey to expand, adapt and grow as we will fully support you to do the same within your chosen career. Here you will have access to continual professional development, to ensure and evidence registration.

Here are just some of the great development opportunities that you can expect if you join us:

• We offer a rolling programme of thematic lunch bowls, practice improvement workshops, legislative training, assessment, risk and analysis sessions as well as positively promoting individual development;
• We have signed up to ‘Research in Practice’, the materials of which are positively promoted across all service areas via learning circles, webinars and workshops;
• The Workforce Development Team facilitate Action Learning Sets across the service to enhance reflective practice;
• Salford Safeguarding Partnership offer a programme of training sessions and seminars on emerging themes within social work practice throughout the year, as well as multi- disciplinary training which offers an opportunity to develop relationships with our partner agencies across the city;
• The Work Force Development team has strong links with all local universities, which provides opportunities for our workforce to gain Practice Education Training, supporting students by facilitating practice-based lectures, taking part in assessment centres and interviewing social work students for a variety of programmes;
• We offer bespoke core skill training to our Newly Qualified Social Workers and aspiring managers;
• We support social workers undertaking Level one and two Practice Educator award;
• We provide opportunities to mentor Newly Qualified Social Workers;
• We have a commitment to supporting staff in achieving their social work accreditation (NAAS);
• We support our staff to develop their leadership skills with our #LeadingSalford programme.

Diversity and inclusion are important to us

We are committed to developing a culture which respects individuals, appreciates difference and allows everyone regardless of background to reach their full potential. We are proud to be an accredited disability confident employer and a Stonewall Diversity Champion. We understand how hard it can be to combine caring for a loved one with work so we also provide support and flexibility to balance family and caring responsibilities with work. Find out more on our diversity and inclusion page.

Our City - Salford

Salford is a modern global city that boasts 249,000 people, 9,600 businesses, 37 square miles, 60% green space, fastest growing economy in GM, £5 billion GVA, UK’s hotspot for business start-ups, 7.5 million visitors a year, Britain’s largest inland waterway, one minute walk from Manchester city centre, northern home of the BBC and ITV, MediaCityUK, The Lowry, RHS Garden Bridgewater, one leading UK university, one outstanding NHS Trust, one airport.

Find out more about why it’s no Salfordinary city!