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Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Job Title: Senior Practitioner

Salary: £49,056 – £55,323 dependent on experience

Grade: PO4 - PO5

Retention Bonus: Up to £3000 (terms & conditions apply)

Contract Type: Permanent

Number of Posts: x 1

Working hours per week: Full Time

Application Deadline: 02/08/2026

Proposed Interview Dates: TBC

Reference: 2174

About Us: 

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a welcoming and exciting place to work. 

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have tight-knit and diverse communities. Our work is always resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded: we’re a borough focused on meeting and exceeding the needs of our existing and future residents. 

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace wellbeing, skills, progression and diversity. 

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method. 

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice. 

About the Senior Practitioner role: 

The Senior Practitioner will be an experienced social worker playing a key role within teams to support high-quality service delivery. You will be supporting the Team Manager and colleagues, as well as working with families to assess their needs, determine an appropriate support plan and care package, and ensure the plan’s implementation.

They will have a caseload including complex work, will provide quality assurance, and will help the team manager to coach less experienced colleagues. They will have opportunities to directly influence and promote the training and development of social workers and social work students in the department.

>> Click here to download the Role Profile << 

Key Responsibilities: 

• To undertake assessments, determine care packages/support plans and manage a range of the most complex caseloads to maintain or improve the wellbeing of children and young people.
• To provide leadership and professional guidance to colleagues.
• Develop, train, and track the development of less experienced social workers
• Supervise less experienced social workers and practitioners to achieve positive outcome for children and families
• Lead on complex cases and key meetings, including case reviews and core group meetings
• Collect and analyse information and present your findings at strategic meetings
• To manage team duty rotas and reflective group supervisions.

Qualifications and Requirements: 

• Have completed a degree, apprenticeship or graduate training scheme in social work
• Be registered with Social Work England
• Ideally have at least 3 years’ experience as a qualified child and family Social Worker

How to Apply: 

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy. 

Terms and conditions: 

The below terms and conditions apply to this role: 

Retention Bonus

Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks 

Satisfactory declaration of interest 

This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/ or vulnerable adults

Satisfactory DBS check; Enhanced

Continued professional body registration

As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English. 

Equal Opportunity Employer: 

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its four equality objectives: promoting equality of opportunity; opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage; ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels; providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent services to all. Respecting diversity is a core Council value. 

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the Council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The Council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy. 

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview. 

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit Social Work in Waltham Forest | London Borough of Waltham Forest

Contact Information: 

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Nadia Begum, our Head of Service - Head of Service Assessment at rongful.begum@walthamforest.gov.uk.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.