Gloucestershire County Council
Fostering Social Worker
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Fostering Social Worker
Job Location: Shire Hall, Block 6
Salary: £40,444 - £48,738 per annum (pro rata for part-time staff)
Hours per Week: 22
Contract Type: Permanent
Closing Date: 20/10/2026
Job Requisition Number: 14959
This post is not open to job share
We are currently recruiting for a part-time Social Worker to join our Fostering Kinship Support team.
Reward and support
For all your hard work, you will receive the following:
- between £40,444 - £48,738 per annum (pro rata for part-time staff)
- £3,600 welcome payment* (pro rata for part-time staff)
- £2,000 retention payment* (pro rata for part-time staff)
- up to £8,000 relocation package**
- flexible and agile working opportunities
- 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service (pro rata for part-time staff)
- option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year (pro rata for part-time staff)
- family-friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
- supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
- Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
- access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone
- an in-house Occupational Health service
- employee discount scheme
- links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
- career development and qualification opportunities
- access to our Social Work Academy
- Cycle to Work scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)
- Green Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)
*Please note that all our welcome and retention payments are subject to terms and conditions as well as tax and national insurance deductions
*Please note that our relocation policy is subject to terms and conditions
Right child, right support, right time, every time
In our recent inspection in June 2025, our Children’s Services have been officially judged as ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ elements. Ofsted also said ‘Leaders have set out a clear vision for delivering success for children, by modelling values and creating a culture where the workforce, children and families feel valued and heard; risk is managed confidently with bottom lines clearly set out.’ This marks an important step in our journey to improve outcomes for our children and young people, and we remain focused on our mission: to continue building on this success and ensure that every child and young person in our county has the opportunity to thrive. Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Social Work Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award-winning workforce.
We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to be part of an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.
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About the team
The Kinship Support Team provide ongoing support, advice, and guidance to Foster Carers who have been assessed to care for a child who is known to them. This could be a relative or any connected persons to the child. The Kinship Support Team begin supporting carers post foster panel approval and will provide regular supervision and support focusing on meeting the national minimum standards, accessing training and support groups, completing their TSD’s (training support and development standards) and providing support in any aspect relating to the child in their care. Kinship carers are a crucial role in providing children with stable and secure family life and the support our team provides is key in maintaining family connections and supporting a child’s identity. We provide support to foster carers both locally to Gloucestershire but also nationally therefore travelling is expected as part of the role. We offer a hybrid flexible working arrangement with our office base being at Shire Hall in Gloucester.
The team is currently made up of 1.5 Team Managers, 2 part-time Deputy Team Managers, 4 full-time Social Workers and 2 part-time Social Workers.
About the role
The team undertake private fostering assessments and monitor private fostering arrangements including homes for Ukraine, educational arrangements and other private arrangements. A private fostering arrangement in the UK is when a child under 16 (or under 18 if disabled) lives with someone who is not their parent, a person with parental responsibility, or a close relative, for 28 days or more. It is our duty to ensure that private fostering arrangements are safe and meet the child’s needs and regularly review the arrangement with minimum of 6 weekly visits in the first 12 months, and then 12 weekly minimum visits thereafter.
About you
As well as your experience, there are some things we require of you to be successfully appointed to this post:
- a full driving licence and willingness to drive
- DBS clearance (Enhanced Adults and Children’s)
- to have completed your ASYE year (if you qualified after 2012)
How to apply
For an informal chat about this role, please contact Natalie.Meakin@gloucestershire.gov.uk
We reserve the right to close an advertisement earlier than the stated closing date if we receive a suitable number of applications.
Interviews are due to take place in person on the 26th and 27th October.
If you would like to find out more about our Children's Service please take a look here: Children's Social Care Careers | Careers hub
Get help with your application
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We welcome applications from newly qualified and social workers in the early years of their career. Depending on your qualification date and previous experience, you will be invited to either join our accredited ASYE programme or to complete an alternative early-career development in-house pathway. The appropriate option will be explored and confirmed as part of the interview and offer process.
We may be able to offer sponsorship for this role, in line with Home Office guidance and subject to pre-employment checks. Applicants must already hold a valid right to work in the UK that Gloucestershire County Council can transfer.
Under the terms of our Safer Recruitment Policy, if you are invited to interview, we will take up safeguarding references prior to your interview to understand your suitability to work with vulnerable children. These references will then be discussed in your interview. Please give details of at least two referees, one of whom must be your present and/or last employer and the other from a previous employer(s). These will need to cover the last three years of employment/education. In the case of applicants leaving full-time education or not having worked since doing so, the Head of School, College or University should be one of the named referees. We do not accept references from friends or family members or workplace colleagues (who are not more senior). To ensure we process your application in a speedy and efficient way, we will contact your referees by DocuSign. Where appropriate, please inform them of your application.
Additional Information
To access the Job Profile for this role, please follow the link below: Fostering Social Worker Job Profile
Applications from any Gloucestershire County Council's employees who are currently on the redeployment register or at risk of redundancy will be considered first at shortlisting stage.
Gloucestershire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people or vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This position is subject to a DBS check.
It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a ‘customer facing role’ must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English.
We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire’s diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential.
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