Fostering Form F Assessing Social Worker

Location: East Midlands

Hours: 35 hours per week

Contract:  Permanent - Home based with travel across East Midlands regions and some travel to West Midlands

Salary: Up to £37,290 per annum plus £750 Home Working Allowance

TACT Carer Recruitment Service is looking for an Assessing Social Worker to join their growing team, recruiting foster carers.

As a ‘not for profit’ organisation, TACT puts the needs of our children and carers first and look to appoint individuals who are as passionate about fostering as we are. As a home-working organisation, we pride ourselves on prioritising the welfare of our employees and our flexible working opportunities, extensive wellbeing programme and benefits package are curated to support a healthy work life balance for all our staff.

As a foster care charity, TACT invests all surplus income into services, staff, carers, and child development. This means that we have been able to invest in unique projects like TACT Connect, our ground-breaking scheme for care experienced young people and adults, our expanding TACT Education Service and our newly established Health Service. 

It is not surprising that in October 2021 the Times 100 Best Companies Survey evidenced “outstanding” levels of engagement amongst our staff and that we are currently listed as 16th in the UK’s Best Mid-Sized Companies across all industries and the 4th Best Charity to work for in 2022. 

Come and join us and be part of our amazing team of professionals whose vision is to provide better lives for our children and young people. Find out more about our values here: https://www.tactcare.org.uk/about-us/

TACT offer an excellent employee benefits package including:

• 31 days paid holiday plus bank holidays
• Flexible working arrangements (including compressed hours, flexibility around core hours, volunteer days policy)
• Family friendly policies
• Homeworking ‘bundle’ including annual allowance of £750, IT equipment and a loan for home office set up
• Stakeholder pension scheme (salary sacrifice) and life insurance from day one
• Employee Assistance Programme (including free counselling, remote GP appointments, physiotherapy, mental health support and second opinions)
• Fantastic learning and development opportunities

The Assessing Social Worker will be proactively building excellent relationships with applicants, preparing them to foster and completing Form F assessments. Many assessment visits are undertaken via video calls but travelling will be required for some face-to-face meetings. The successful candidate will be expected to travel across the East and West Midlands region and would therefore need to live within a reasonable distance to enable this.

Core Assessing Social Worker Tasks include: 

• Preparing applicants for the fostering role
• Promoting and supporting the development of trauma informed foster care / therapeutic parenting
• Assessment of prospective foster families
• Contributing to the continuous improvement of fostering assessments and applicant preparation

Main Requirements for the Assessing Social Worker Role:

• BA or Master’s in Social Work or Dip SW, CSS or CQSW qualification
• Social Work England Registration
• Post qualifying experience including relevant family placement work or post qualifying experience in other child-care settings which must include statutory childcare work
• Experience of assessing foster families and preparing them for the fostering tasks
• A proven track record in working with and on behalf of children and foster families, using a trauma-informed therapeutic approach
• A passion for ensuring children receive the highest quality care from their foster family
• Knowledge of relevant child-care and fostering regulations, legislation, and best practice
• Good IT skills including Office 365

More detailed information is provided in our downloadable Job Information Pack.

Closing Date: Midnight on Sunday, 11th December 2022

​Interview Date: Monday, 19th December 2022 (via Microsoft Teams)

Safeguarding is everyone’s business and TACT believe that only the people with the right skills and values should work in social work.  As part of TACT’s commitment to safeguarding, we properly examine the skills, experience, qualifications, and values of potential staff in relation to our work with vulnerable young children.  We use rigorous and consistent recruitment approaches to help safeguard TACT’s young people.  All our staff are expected to work in line with TACT’s safeguarding policies.

TACT does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.

TACT reserve the right to close the vacancy once we have received sufficient applications, so we advise you to submit your application as early as possible to prevent disappointment.