Supervising Social Worker
| Posting date: | 01 April 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £35,390.46 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 09 April 2026 |
| Location: | Halesowen, West Midlands |
| Remote working: | On-site only |
| Company: | Barnardo's |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 22739 |
Summary
Barnardo's is seeking a committed and skilled Supervising Social Worker to join our Midlands Fostering Families service which also covers the South East of England. This is a fantastic opportunity to be part of a supportive and passionate team dedicated to providing high‑quality support to foster carers and achieving the best outcomes for children.
As a Supervising Social Worker, you will support, supervise, and develop a caseload of foster carers, ensuring safe, child‑centred, and high‑quality fostering practice.
Your caseload will be predominantly based in the South East, and you will work closely with foster families, children, colleagues, and partner agencies.
This is a home-based role, however on occasions you may be required to travel to our Halesowen office to attend team meetings, support service delivery, and engage in collaborative practice.
Your role will include the following:
Provide supervision, support, and guidance to foster carers in line with regulatory and Barnardo's standards.
Undertake visits, assessments, and reviews to ensure safe, effective, and child‑led foster homes.
Work directly with children and young people to understand their lived experiences and support positive outcomes.
Contribute to the recruitment, training, and development of foster carers.
Work in partnership with local authorities, health, education, and other agencies.
Ensure robust safeguarding practice and respond effectively to any concerns.
Maintain accurate and timely records and contribute to audits, quality assurance, and service planning.
Additional Information:
Please include as much relevant detail in your application to demonstrate how you fulfil the requirements of our job role, as outlined above and in the Job Description/Personal Specification. Experience can be from previous employment, education, training, volunteering etc.
Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.
Pay & Reward Framework
We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.
For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.
Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours. More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.
About Barnardo's
We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.
Our basis and values
As a Supervising Social Worker, you will support, supervise, and develop a caseload of foster carers, ensuring safe, child‑centred, and high‑quality fostering practice.
Your caseload will be predominantly based in the South East, and you will work closely with foster families, children, colleagues, and partner agencies.
This is a home-based role, however on occasions you may be required to travel to our Halesowen office to attend team meetings, support service delivery, and engage in collaborative practice.
Your role will include the following:
Provide supervision, support, and guidance to foster carers in line with regulatory and Barnardo's standards.
Undertake visits, assessments, and reviews to ensure safe, effective, and child‑led foster homes.
Work directly with children and young people to understand their lived experiences and support positive outcomes.
Contribute to the recruitment, training, and development of foster carers.
Work in partnership with local authorities, health, education, and other agencies.
Ensure robust safeguarding practice and respond effectively to any concerns.
Maintain accurate and timely records and contribute to audits, quality assurance, and service planning.
Additional Information:
Please include as much relevant detail in your application to demonstrate how you fulfil the requirements of our job role, as outlined above and in the Job Description/Personal Specification. Experience can be from previous employment, education, training, volunteering etc.
Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.
Pay & Reward Framework
We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.
For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.
Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours. More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.
About Barnardo's
We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.
Our basis and values
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.