The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Social Worker - Foster and Permanence
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Help foster carers and ensure children thrive in safe, nurturing family homes.
As a Social Worker in our Fostering team, you will support children and foster families across the Fostering Shared Services localities (Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster City Council), ensuring they have the stability and care they need to thrive. You will carry out thorough assessments and deliver crucial supervision to strengthen local foster care networks.
Working Style
This role offers a flexible hybrid working arrangement. You will be undertaking regular home visits with the children and foster carers you will be working with. We value a healthy work-life balance and provide flexibility in how you manage your working hours and workload to meet service needs.
Whether you are out in the community or collaborating with colleagues, you will be part of a dedicated team making a real difference to children and families.
What you’ll be doing
No day in this role is ever quite the same. You will provide quality supervision and guidance to foster carers, ensuring children experience safe, stable and nurturing care. You will carry out high-quality assessments for the service, this will include mainstream fostering, private fostering and kinship care. Additional duties will include facilitating training and support groups, conducting annual foster carer reviews and maintaining accurate, analytical case recordings on our digital systems.
Alongside your day-to-day casework, you will actively participate in the duty rota and support recruitment events to help build a diverse pool of foster carers across the borough. You will also play a key role in innovative initiatives like our Mockingbird hub, an extended family model providing peer support and community connections for foster families. Whilst maintaining caseloads you are required to adapt your schedule for after-school meetings and occasional evening or weekend recruitment events.
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For further details, please review the Job Description and Person Specification
What you’ll bring
As a registered Social Worker you will bring post-qualifying experience in children and family assessments, safeguarding or fostering, backed by a clear understanding of the Children Act 1989, Fostering Regulations 2011 and Fostering National Minimum Standards.
You possess excellent communication skills, enabling you to build genuine rapport with children, foster carers and families from all walks of life. Highly organised and proactive, you take initiative to solve problems, adapt to changing priorities and manage a varied caseload under pressure. Above all, you bring the personal flexibility and empathy required to support carers when they need you the most.
Why join us
At RBKC, we’re all in – investing in our people, our communities and our future.
Joining our Ofsted-rated Outstanding service means working within a supportive, flexible team that prioritises the wellbeing of staff as much as the children we support. You will benefit from a competitive salary, a local government pension scheme and clear pathways for career development.
What makes this role truly unique is our shared services model across three London boroughs: the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster City Council. This collaborative arrangement gives you access to shared resources, extensive training opportunities and professional networks to help you develop your practice.
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About us
Kensington and Chelsea is home to diverse communities, thriving businesses and unique local places. Everything we do is focused on supporting our residents, strengthening our approach and creating a fairer borough.
As a competent and caring Council, we take pride in our work every day, ensuring our services are delivered with care and competence. We listen to our residents, act with integrity and work together to build a borough that is greener, safer and fairer for all. By committing fully, you will turn challenges into real opportunities for growth, directly driving our vision of a compassionate and outstanding service.
Interview Details
Face to Face interviews W/C 19th October 2026 which will include, a assessment, young peoples panel and a formal interview.
And Enhanced Barred List DBS is required for the role
Ready to join us?
We’re all in – are you? If you share our values and have the skills to contribute, we’d love to hear from you.
Please apply online explaining how you meet the requirements set out in the person specification and job description.
We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning, subject to the volume of suitable applicants.
We are committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity, and welcome applications from all sections of the community.
We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.
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