Social Worker (Leaving Care Service)

Salary details: £ - £

About the role:

This role is a full time social worker post based within the Derbyshire’s Leaving Care Service. This enables excellent transitions to adulthood and excellent working relationships. The post is in the North East and Amber Valley Team based in Chesterfield, in a thriving young person hub/office space.

Embedded within the team and service is a trauma informed, relationship based culture with high support, expectations and outcomes for our children.

We support newly qualified social workers to progress in their career through supportive frameworks and excellent progression opportunities. We work hard to ensure that our social workers have the time and resources to deliver good outcomes for children and families. Our vision means working creatively to inspire and empower children, young people, and their families to be the best they can be.

What will you be doing?

• Provide a quality social work service that supports children to achieve their potential.
• Effectively manage a number of young people to achieve the best outcomes for them.
• Working in partnership with individuals build and sustain relationships, identify needs, and develop plans and responses that meet those needs.
• Work closely with our care leavers, our partners and locality social work teams with an aspirational approach for young people’s futures.
• Develop and embed a thorough knowledge of aspirational planning and transitions support for care leavers within the service.
• Support leaving care workers with an understanding of social work practices, systems, knowledge and practice models.
• Represent the service locally and regionally.

What skills and experience do you need? 

•  BA Honours in Social Work and current Social Work England registration (refer to job and person profile for more information).
•  Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a person-centred approach to building a rapport and relationships with children and families.
•  Ability to reflect on own practice and development enabling flexible and thoughtful social work practice and positive change.
• Experience of relationship focused social work.

In line with our performance capability framework, systemic practice model and continued professional development, qualified registered social workers are eligible to progress from grade 9 to 11, which attracts a salary of between £32,347 - £43,270 pro rata.

We believe that hard work and commitment to your role should be rewarded, so we offer a package to our social workers that will ensure you always feel supported and valued:

• manageable case loads
• diverse range of cases providing an exciting, challenging and rewarding career
• effective leadership and management which helps to reduce risk for our social workers and the children and families they support
• excellent supervision and a supportive peer network
• accelerated pay progression opportunities for frontline social workers following their ASYE
• systemic training equivalent to a foundation level Post Graduate Certificate
• access to an excellent range of training and development opportunities, worth over £5000, including leadership and management development
• Corporate membership with Research in Practice – allowing access to reputable, evidence-based research, training, and resources
• fantastic opportunities to undertake further formal qualifications and career progression through our career pathways
• DBS check undertaken and paid for by us
• Social Work England registration fee reimbursed

For more information on Children and Family services and becoming a social worker in Derbyshire please visit https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/social-health/children-and-families/social-worker-recruitment/be-a-so… 

If you would like to talk to someone informally about this post, please contact Team Manager, Lisa Hulley – lisa.hulley@derbyshire.gov.uk

What benefits do we offer you?

• Local Government Pension Scheme
• generous annual leave and flexi-time scheme
• travel expenses
• discount on leisure centre memberships
• free car parking at most sites
• an in-house counselling service
• occupational health service
• access to sessions with a trained physiotherapist
• cycle to work scheme

Provisional Interview Date: 3 November 2025

Due to this post having access to children and/or vulnerable adults, the successful candidate will be required to undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service check. The possession of a criminal record will not necessarily prevent an applicant from obtaining this post, as all cases are judged individually according to the nature of the role and information provided. Click here to see our policy on criminal background checks.

Apply now and take the first step towards a fulfilling career with us! By joining Derbyshire County Council you will have access to a range of amazing rewards and employee benefits, including our generous annual leave scheme, excellent local government pension and fantastic employee discounts. To discover more detail about the rewards and benefits available to you, click here

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We welcome applications from individuals who share our values — being Collaborative, Innovative, Empowered and Accountable. These values describe who we are and what we stand for as a council. They help shape our culture, encourage consistent behaviour and guide how we work together to make a positive difference for both our employees and the residents we serve.