Job Description

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester LE3 8RA

Salary: £38,734 - £45,982 (inclusive of market premia at £3,283) per annum (pro rata for part-time) (Pay award pending)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 2nd August 2026

Interview Date(s): TBC

Are you an experienced social worker who is passionate about helping children find safe, stable and loving homes where they can thrive? If so, we'd love to hear from you.

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our Fostering and Adoption Assessment Team as a permanent Fostering Assessment Social Worker. This is a rewarding role where you'll play a key part in identifying, assessing and supporting carers who can make a difference to children and young people across Leicestershire.

About The Role

The primary focus of this position is undertaking mainstream fostering assessments, helping to ensure that children can access high-quality care from skilled, nurturing foster families.

Alongside fostering assessments, you'll also have the opportunity to complete:

• Private fostering assessments
• Non-agency adoption assessments
• Kinship assessments, supporting colleagues within our Kinship Assessment Team when required
• Skills to Foster training

This varied role offers the chance to develop and apply your assessment skills across a range of permanence pathways, while working alongside experienced and passionate professionals.

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

About You

To apply for this post, you must be able to evidence in your application how you meet the following criteria:

• A Social Work degree or equivalent, e.g. CQSW, DipSW (with specialism in children’s services), and hold two years recent post-qualification experience of working in a statutory setting including Safeguarding, Court, and Pre-proceeding work.
• You will need to comprehensively assess applicant carers – working with them in a way that allows for a thorough assessment (which analyses whether they meet the criteria for the assessment), but which also supports them, in a compassionate way, to learn all that they can about fostering, private fostering, or non-agency adoption, in order that they are better prepared to meet the needs of the children in their care (currently or in the future).
• A proven ability to communicate thoughtfully, confidently, succinctly and with purpose, (both verbally and in writing (using Microsoft Office and database applications relevant to the department)) with children, young people, parents/carers, colleagues and other multi-agencies and professionals.
• An ability to use your initiative, to be able to prioritise, and to offer flexibility in order to manage competing workloads and deadlines, and to ensure effective team working, with an ability – where necessary - to travel to locations throughout the county (and sometimes, across the country) working outside of office hours when required
• An in-depth knowledge and ability to apply relevant policies appropriate legislation government guidance and best practice in all aspects of social work including LSCB procedures – with specific awareness of the Fostering Regulations and guidance, and how to undertake fostering and private fostering assessments.
• An awareness of the cultural, racial, linguistic and religious background of children, young people and families and how to build this knowledge into service delivery.
• Have comprehensive knowledge of the factors and influences which can impact on families and children achieving positive outcomes including child development, attachment and neglect, and parental factors such as substance misuse domestic abuse and mental health.