Social Worker - Children in Need (CIN)

Job overview

Are you interested in professional development opportunities and the ability to practice to the best of your ability within a supportive, innovative Outstanding Local Authority? If so, Islington is looking to recruit enthusiastic and talented social workers to our Children in Need Service and our Disabled Children’s Team. Please note, this opportunity is not for newly qualified Social Workers, which is recruited to separately as part of our ASYE academy.

Main duties of the job

As a Children and Family Social Worker you will bring experience of assessing risk and making plans to safeguard and care for children. Additionally, you will be responsible for progressing plans for sustainable change with families, stepping up to care proceedings or stepping down to targeted services where necessary, ensuring plans for all children are in place that provide for their safety, stability and permanency.

You will be accustomed to employing social work principles such as dignity, respect, empathy, and strength based collaborative approaches to service delivery.

You will understand the impact of trauma on children and their families, and the implications of this for their ongoing needs.

Motivational interviewing (MI) skills are the cornerstone of social work practice in the Children Services in Islington. In order to help us select the best candidates, Islington have developed a two-stage interview process, with the first stage being an opportunity to test out applicants' MI compatibility. Candidates are not required to have advanced MI skills, rather we are seeking to identify those who have the capacity to learn and develop these skills with the advanced training and feedback. Further details will be provided to all candidates who are shortlisted and offered an interview.

The benefits of this post include:

Retention bonus, Zone 1-2 Travel Card, protected case load, specially designed core training package, professional development opportunities, regular reflective supervision, practice evaluation, Local Government Pension Scheme and generous holidays, flexible working arrangements, an experienced management team, and a great working location in Islington.

Closing date: Sunday 6th April 2025 2025 at 23:59

Working for your organisation

Islington was rated as Outstanding by Ofsted in March 2020. Ofsted has reported “Children in Islington benefit from services that have gone from strength to strength... Senior leaders and members of the council demonstrate an unwavering commitment to improving and enriching the lives of children and their families. This is evidenced by the significant and sustained investment in children’s services, and by the wide range of highly successful initiatives that are having a positive impact on children and their families, whatever their level of need. Highly skilled and experienced staff listen carefully to children to understand their needs and ensure that plans are effective”.  

What is Motivational Practice?

Motivational Practice is Islington’s Practice Model. There are core elements that underpin the practice framework that provide a set of skills around how to communicate in a helpful way with families that leads to a plan for change. Empathy underpins any form of effective work with people and motivational practice aims to build effective working relationships with families being able to identify their own reasons for change. 

What Islington Will Offer You:

• Protected caseloads and reduced bureaucracy will allow more intensive work with families; more frequent visits, and the opportunity to build transformative relationships and undertake more direct work.
• A specially designed core training package to deliver goal based interventions, use evidenced based tools, develop reflective and thoughtful risk assessment, and to measure progress.
• Availability of an intensive multi-disciplinary service to enhance social work intervention where the concerns for the child are high risk.
• Social workers will receive regular reflective supervision and practice development opportunities to enhance their own professional effectiveness.

For further information or for an informal conversation about the post, please contact: