Experienced Social Worker:  Pay Band L / SCP 32-33 / £38,296 to £39,493 per annum

Advanced Social Worker: Pay Band M / SCP 34-35 / £40,478 to £41,496 per annum

Knowsley’s Children’s Services has been on an incredible journey, and we have done this by being better together with a whole council approach! It’s been tough here at times, as we have worked through our OFSTED improvement journey from 2017. However, following a restructure there is a stable and increased management capacity to support social work practice and improvements.

We have a reputation as a good place to practice social work. Our latest OFSTED focused visit was positive, and we are now seeing the impact of the hard work undertaken since 2017, both for the children and families we serve.

Our services are stable, we have an experienced and committed established senior leadership team under our Director of Children Services Julie Moss and we are seeing that children and families are now receiving better services.

At the heart of this improvement has been our investment in social work practice and our social workers. Our shared sense of purpose is based upon the Knowsley Better Together values, culture and practice principals. This is embedded from universal services through to Children’s social care.

Our teams are small and strengthened by a Supervision Policy which enables a supportive relationship with your manager. We are committed to reducing our caseloads, enabling our social workers to spend time developing trusted relationships with children and their families.

Our staff care about Knowsley’s children and families, and we care about them.

We value that our staff are fully committed and often work above and beyond- we’ve seen that even more during the Pandemic.  In return we therefore offer a flexible approach to working including remote and home working and flexibility with working hours to allow you to meet your own family’s needs too.

We offer a unique opportunity for professional development through our Emergency Duty team service which you can opt into in addition to your day to day role and core salary. Being part of this team offers an excellent chance to develop your skills in decision making and safeguarding which is recognised as part of our progression policy.

If you would like to come and join us on the next stage of this journey please get in touch, you will be guaranteed invaluable experience, a manageable caseload, interesting work and good quality management support.

Child Protection Service

Social workers in our Child Protection Teams support children and their families via Child in Need Plans, Child Protection Plans and PLO Pre-Proceedings. Our small teams each have five social workers, an Advanced Social Worker and Team Manager. You will be supported to develop a relationship with your manager, have regular supervision, support from our Quality Assurance Team, excellent training opportunities and access to tools and resources to assist in your day-to-day practice.

You will have the opportunity to develop trusting relationships with children and their families, using our strength-based model Signs of Safety. Knowsley Better Together approach compliments the practice model which runs through all service levels. Through this we support families to have great outcomes and prevent children’s needs from escalating. 

Cared For Children Service

Supporting our children is all about ensuring children in our care receive excellent parenting whatever setting they are living in with the same life chances as any other young person.

In this service you will find an experienced and stable management team managing small teams of six staff including an Advanced social work practitioner.

The focus within the service is to offer ongoing assessment, review and support children and young people who live in long term care arrangements. This gives you the opportunity to get to know a Child/Young person and be part of their development and achievements looking to support them either to be reunified with family or a move through to independence.

Alongside this you will support a limited number of families through Care proceedings, working with children and families to develop child centred permanency plans.

Social workers within our Cared for Children teams are committed to supporting our children to have a great childhood and future outcomes. They support children to achieve a plan of permanence and ensure we discharge Care Order’s and achieve Special Guardian Orders for children, wherever is possible and safe to do so. You will have a passion for being an advocate and corporate parent for the children our care and committed to establishing longer term trusting relationships with them, and helping them to understand their unique life story.

At Knowsley Council we will consider requests for flexible working.  For most roles, the following types of flexibility are usually possible: flexible hours, working from home, compressed hours

For informal enquiries please contact:

Team Manager Cared for Children - Bec Gale 0151 443 2600

Team Manager Child Protection - Sarah Bird 0151 443 5050  

Closing date : 28 May 2023