Social Worker - Children Looked After
Posting date: | 06 August 2025 |
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Salary: | £39,152.00 to £41,771.00 per year |
Additional salary information: | plus £963 essential car user allowance plus £5,500 market supplement allowance |
Hours: | Full time |
Closing date: | 18 August 2025 |
Location: | Luton, Bedfordshire |
Remote working: | On-site only |
Company: | Luton Council |
Job type: | Permanent |
Job reference: | LBC03902 |
Summary
Salary: £39,152 - £41,771 a year plus £963 essential car user allowance plus £5,500 market supplement allowance
Hours per week: 37
Contract type: Permanent
Are you passionate about making a difference in the lives of children, young people, and families? Do you thrive in complex, dynamic environments and bring experience, dedication, and compassion to your work? If so, we’d love to hear from you.
We are currently recruiting to vacancies across our Children Looked After teams. In this pivotal role, you will work closely with children, young people, families, and multidisciplinary teams to provide vital support and protection for those with complex needs and risks. Your responsibilities will include:
Conducting assessments, statutory visits, and parenting evaluations.
Planning and implementing tailored, multi-agency interventions.
Collaborating with internal and external partners for joint casework.
Driving the development of best practices and procedures aligned with Social Work Professional Standards.
Supporting management in achieving key performance targets.
Please note this role does not attract sponsorship.
About you
You are a passionate and experienced social work professional, bringing substantial post-qualifying expertise in fostering and child and family social work. With a deep understanding of the needs of young people in care, you have developed a high level of competence in the fostering field, aligning your practice with national standards and best practice guidance.
Your experience includes working directly with children who have experienced trauma, attachment challenges, and associated disorders, and you bring both empathy and insight to your approach. You have a strong track record of providing effective supervision, both one-to-one and in group settings, demonstrating confident leadership in supervisory practice and support.
A skilled communicator, you’re able to present complex reports and deliver impactful presentations tailored to a range of audiences. You thrive in collaborative environments, contributing to team-based problem-solving with a solution-focused mindset.
Building meaningful relationships is at the heart of your work—whether with children, carers, or colleagues—and your ability to engage people from all backgrounds is one of your key strengths.
You hold a DipSW, CQSW, or an equivalent recognised qualification in social work, and you are registered with Social Work England.
About us
Luton Council has been selected to deliver the government’s Families First for Children Pathfinder programme.
Luton is one of seven new areas in the second wave to be chosen with the aim of protecting vulnerable children from harm and improving services to help more children stay with their families in safe and loving homes.
The programme is an amazing opportunity for Luton to shape future social care practice, which includes closer working relationships with our health, police, education and voluntary sector partners.
Children are at the heart of everything we do in Luton, and we are very proud of the tremendous work that is already taking place together with our partners, including the development of our Family Hubs and working towards making Luton a child-friendly town where our children and young people can grow up feeling happy, healthy and secure.
Our ambitious Luton 2040 Vision – that no-one in Luton will have to live in poverty – is at the heart of everything we do. We recognise that our people are remarkable, talented, committed and passionate about serving our residents.
The people of Luton depend heavily on this council – and that means our workforce! Are you ready to realise the remarkable and help us deliver our vision?
We welcome applications from all sections of the community and are committed to developing a workforce that reflects the diversity of our borough
Application process
Because of the nature of this job, it will be necessary for the appropriate level of criminal record disclosure to be undertaken. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore applicants are required to declare all unspent cautions and convictions; and also any adult cautions (simple or conditional), and spent convictions that are not protected as defined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2020). A person’s criminal record will not in itself prevent a person from being appointed to this post. Applicants will not be refused posts because of offences which are not relevant to, and do not place them at or make them a risk in, the role for which they are applying. However in the event of the employment being taken up, any failure to disclose such offence, as detailed above, will result in dismissal or disciplinary action by the Authority.
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