Walsall Council
Social Worker Aspiring Futures - Ref: CH04526
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Social Worker - Aspiring Futures (Fixed term for 12 months) - Ref: CH04526
Grade: G9; Salary Range: £42,839 - £46,142
An exciting opportunity has arisen for the appointment of a social worker specialising in working with children and young people who are exploited to join our Aspiring Futures Team on a 12-month fixed term basis.
Exploitation in Walsall
Walsall Children’s Social Care have created a service for exploited young people, with exploited young people. We have listened to what our exploited young people, families and professionals have said about what is needed and created a model of working based on this. Collectively, we are incredibly proud of what has been created and the positive impact the team have had with our exploited young people in Walsall.
The Aspiring Futures team consists of a Team Manager, Assistant Team Manager, Social Workers, Aspiring Futures Practitioners and Exploitation Coordinators. No matter where a young person is within their social care journey, they will have one Aspiring Futures Practitioner or Street Team’s practitioner who will work in a relationale, trauma-informed way to seek to reduce the exploitation risks, alongside a social worker within Aspiring futures or locality family help teams.
The model is based on rationale practice and ensuring consistency of practitioners, enabling a rapport to be built which brings the ability to gather greater, more rich and vital information that not only contributes to keeping that young person safe, but supports mapping of all exploitation risks across Walsall. We actively attend and advocate for our young people in all statutory meetings and contribute to wider planning, having an in-depth understanding of our young people, the push and pull factors, behaviours and who they are as individuals.
We work closely with partner agencies, including but not limited to: Police, Street Teams, the Youth Justice Service, Education, Health, the Violence Reduction Partnership, Mentoring Services, Detached Youth Work Services, and Voluntary Organisations. We undertake MACE (Multi-Agency Child Exploitation) Meetings on a monthly basis for all our high-risk young people.
Daily Exploitation Triage is currently in place and oversees all age exploitation and missing episodes and is attended by partner agencies. This is chaired by the Team Manager or Assistant Team Manager on rotation.
The same offer which we deliver to our high risk exploited young people, is delivered to our medium risk exploited young people by Street Teams, who we work seamlessly alongside. Our low risk exploited young people have their needs met through our internal Youth Worker offer.
The Role
As a social worker within the Aspiring Futures team, you would be working with a reduced number of young people who are being exploited, in order to enable you to work more intensively with the young person and their family, working alongside them to understand their needs and lived experiences of the young person in relation to exploitation and contextual safeguarding utilising context weighting, whilst considering and understanding wider vulnerabilities and protective factors. Social workers within Aspiring Futures, work with young people from the start of their journey with social care, and work with young people considered at medium or high risk of exploitation identified through our daily exploitation triage.
The Our Family assessments and Exploitation Risk Reduction assessments completed by the social workers and Aspiring futures practitioners within the team support in identifying and analysing the extra-familial and contextual risks the young person is experiencing alongside the familial risks and protective factors. This is achieved through the use of specific prompts and questions throughout the assessment process and direct work tools, enabling the practitioner to gain a greater understanding of how the young person interacts with the wider contexts around them and what risks this may pose to them. The assessment process enables practitioners to build an understanding of the young person and family and their wider contexts by gathering a range of information about what has happened before, what is happening now and what needs to happen next to support change and ensure that young people are safe and that their needs are being met.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Participation and partnership working with the young person and their families is key within the work of the Aspiring Futures team, ensuring time is taken to build a positive and engaging relationship with the young person and their family and fully involve them in their safety planning and decision making. Young people and their families are supported to actively participate in their MACE meetings and Team Around the Family meetings alongside key partners, to support risk reduction, disruption of the exploitation and to achieve their aspirations and positive outcomes.
As a social worker within Aspiring Futures, you will engage in group supervision with other involved practitioners around the family, in addition to individual monthly supervision. You will also be offered clinical supervision through a trained clinical psychologist.
About you
You will be Social Work Qualified with a minimum of 12 months post qualifying experience working within children’s services.
You will be registered with Social Work England.
You will be enthusiastic, passionate and knowledgeable about reducing exploitation for young people. You will be professional, dynamic and lead with care and compassion. You will understand risk management, context weighting and push and pull factors which contribute to our children becoming exploited.
You will be experienced social worker with substantial previous experience of assessing and supporting the needs of children who are considered children in need, children at risk of significant harm, and children in our care. You will be experienced and have a good understanding of statutory responsibilities you have as a social worker in as outlined in the Children Act 1989 and Working Together to Safeguard Children.
You will have excellent communication skills both verbal and written, with young people and their families, colleagues and the wider professional network.
You will have excellent assessment, report writing and analytical skills and demonstrate professional curiosity.
Above all you will be driven to make positive changes for our exploited young people in Walsall and invested in the development of the staff and service. If this is you, we are excited to hear from you.
Why work for us:
Our staff are our biggest resources, and we want to invest in them! We have a great range of benefits available to us as Council employees. These benefits include Discounts for holidays, groceries, clothes, electrics and gym membership; Financial benefits, Expenses, Flexible leave and Professional Development.
Our model of work is hybrid, you will work 2-3 days office based (or as required) and the ability to work from home. We also offer a 9 day per fortnight pattern of working.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
You will be respected and valued and feel a part of a connected team and service.
If you are passionate about supporting young people who are experiencing exploitation and their families and want to work as part of an innovative team in an OFSTED-rated ‘Outstanding’ local authority, committed to ongoing learning where you will receive good supervision and training, please get in touch for an informal discussion with Antony Ross, Team Manager Aspiring Futures [Antony.ross@walsall.gov.uk], or Rebecca Warren, Group Manager, Help and Support [Rebecca.warren@walsall.gov.uk].
Closing date for applications: 9th August 2026
Interviews to take place w/c 17th August 2026
View Job Description and Employee Specification
This post is covered by the Government’s Code of Practice on the English Language Fluency Duty for public sector workers. The post holder will be required to communicate verbally with customers and provide advice and/or information in accurate spoken English.
Walsall Council takes seriously the responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all the children, young people and vulnerable adults entrusted to our care and it is our expectation that all staff will share this commitment. We will ensure continuous development and improvement of robust recruitment processes and procedures that promote a culture of safeguarding amongst our workforce. Completion of an enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check is a requirement for working with children, young people and vulnerable adults.
Note: Applicants appointed to posts that require an enhanced DBS clearance must declare any periods of time that they have lived, studied or worked abroad and be prepared to provide an Overseas Criminal Records Certificate (OCRC) or a Statement of Good Conduct (SOGC) relating to anytime they were overseas.
For this role the successful candidates must undergo a Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) check. BPSS is the minimum standard to ensure the identity and integrity of an employee who has access to official information using secure networks linking central government and local authorities. A BPSS check involves four main elements; Identity Check, National and Immigration Status, Employment History (last 3 years) and Verification of Criminal Record (unspent convictions only).
Important note: When completing your online application form, you will be asked to enter supporting information. You must enter a detailed supporting information statement describing how your skills, abilities and experience meet the specific criteria included in the employee specification. If you do not include a supporting information statement, you will not be shortlisted. Please also ensure that you complete the work history and qualifications sections of your application form. Please do not add a CV as we do not accept them. Please see our Information for Applicants leaflet for further information.
We kindly request that recruitment agencies do not contact us regarding this job vacancy. We are not accepting agency applications or referrals at this time.
At Walsall Council, we appreciate that AI can be a useful
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location