Children and young people sessional worker jobs

Sessional Assessing Social Worker

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Role: Self-employed Form F Assessor

Locations: Applicants must live within the following areas, North West, Merseyside, Sefton, Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Manchester, Stockport, Tameside, Bolton, Oldham, Lancashire, Rochdale, and Wigan.

As a charity, we are committed to ensuring that our resources are directed towards supporting our children. For this reason, we are only able to consider applicants who live within the required geographical areas, as supporting roles outside these locations would create additional costs.

Pay - £2,250 per Form F Assessment / £37.50 per hour,  plus £250 bonus for ‘panel ready’ assessments, plus £250 bonus for completion within 16 weeks, plus 55p mileage.

We are the UK’s largest specialist charity provider of fostering. Our core work involves providing high quality and well supported fostering families for children and young people in the care of local authorities. 

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. TACT invests all surplus income into staff, carers, and child development. This means that we have been able to establish expert in-house support services such as our TACT Health and Education Services and create TACT Connect, our ground-breaking scheme for care experienced young people and adults.  New staff and workers will join us as we  embark on a journey to become a wholly trauma-informed organisation with the aim of increasing our effectiveness and improving outcomes for the children and young people in our care.

As a self-employed worker with TACT, you will be a part of our amazing team of professionals working with our organisational values at the heart of their everyday practice. You can review our values here.

We are recruiting sessional assessing social workers to undertake Form F assessments. Our assessments are undertaken face to face. Applicants must live within the following areas, North West, Merseyside, Sefton, Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Manchester, Stockport, Tameside, Bolton, Oldham, Lancashire, Rochdale, and Wigan.

Key Duties for Form F Assessors include:

• To undertake and complete Form F assessments in the timescale set out in our policy and guidance.
• To visit personal referees as identified on application form for prospective foster carers.
• To ensure that all checks and references are undertaken and completed.
• To provide to the supervisor, regular written updates of the draft assessment.
• To liaise with our administrative team concerning the progress of administrative checks and completion of the Form F.
• To be available for supervision, consultation or liaison as required.
• To be available to present completed Form Fs to the virtual fostering panel and provide support to the applicants through this process.
• To be aware of our child protection procedures and immediately report any child protection matter or concerns to a TACT manager and any relevant placing authority and the area authority.
• To carry out the duties in line with our Foster Carer and Supervising Social Worker Standards and Practice Guidance.

Rates of Pay for Form F Assessors

• £2,250 per Form F Assessment / £37.50 per hour,  plus £250 bonus for ‘panel ready’ assessments, plus £250 bonus for completion within 16 weeks, plus 45p mileage
• £37.50 per hour for assessments which are not completed, and any other piece of work.

Please see the Self-Employed Form F Assessor Job Information Pack for a full breakdown of role requirements. 

You will be DipSW, CSS or CQSW qualified and registered with the relevant regulatory body (Social Work England).

An Enhanced DBS check will be required for this role and will be undertaken  by TACT on your behalf.

Closing Date: Wednesday 8th July 2026

Interview Date: Tuesday 16th July 2026

Safeguarding is everyone’s business and we believe that only the people with the right skills and values should work in social work.  As part of our 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 our young people. All staff are expected to work in line with TACT’s safeguarding policies.

We reserve the right to close a vacancy earlier than advertised if the volume of applications is excessive, you are therefore advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

We do not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.

#LI-JO1

Our specialist children's practitioners provide child-led play therapy sessions on a weekly basis, usually for 6-16 weeks. Sessions give children the opportunity to process what has happened to them and make sense of the complicated and confusing emotions they may be experiencing.  Our practitioners work from our purpose-designed therapeutic playroom in Colchester or from some of our outreach premises in other areas, using a range of techniques including sand tray, art and imaginative play.

What we expect from our Sessional Counsellors/Play Therapists:

· Support up to eight CARA clients each week

· Maintain and update accurate database records of clients

· Diploma in Counselling or equivalent, with a minimum of 400 counselling hours.

· Certificate in Counselling Children, Play Therapy qualification or equivalent

· Experience of working therapeutically with children with psychological and behavioural problems.

· An understanding of how trauma affects children both physically and emotionally.

· An ability to work creatively to enable children to process their conscious and unconscious emotions.

· An ability to work collaboratively with parents, while protecting children’s confidentiality.

· To liaise with other agencies including social care, Children and Adolescent Mental Health service (CAMHS) and schools, and attend meetings and provide reports, where required.

· Attendance of one CARA Meeting per month and attendance of monthly point of contact meetings.

· Attendance of clinical supervision, provided by a CARA-approved supervisor.

· Attend annual safeguarding training and other relevant training

· An open and non-judgemental attitude.

· Demonstrable understanding of safeguarding, both in relation to children and to vulnerable adults;

· Sessional Counsellors/Play Therapists will be working with clients on behalf of CARA and not on a private basis.  As such, they will be bound by CARA’s processes, policies and procedures.

· Commitment to the feminist ethos of CARA

· Willingness to commit the necessary time to supporting vulnerable clients

· Membership of BACP, UKCP or equivalent professional body

· Abide by BACP’s Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy

· Owing to the nature of the role, we are only able to take on female candidates

What the Sessional Counsellor/Play Therapist can expect from us:

·Training and support

·Ongoing training opportunities

We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds and those with additional language skills, including BSL.

About CARA

CARA (Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse) works with victims and survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse, providing independent, specialist support and promoting and representing their rights and needs. 

CARA is a registered charity working with adults of all genders, young people and children from across mid and north Essex.  We have a head office in Colchester and outreach premises in Braintree, Chelmsford, Clacton-on-Sea, Great Dunmow and Harwich.  We also provide remote services.

CARA seeks to be an inclusive organisation that actively encourages, supports and values diversity amongst both our service-users and our workers.  We wish to create a culture in which discrimination, in all its forms, is recognised and addressed.

You can read more about CARA’s commitment to diversity and inclusion on our website.  We encourage and welcome applications from candidates from diverse backgrounds.

About Synergy East

CARA is part of Synergy East. We work closely with SERICC Rape and Sexual Abuse Specialist Service and Southend-on-Sea Rape Crisis (SOS Rape Crisis) to deliver the contract for the Office for the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex for services for victims and survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse across Essex.