8 Children support worker jobs in Leicester

CONTRACT: Permanent (dependent on funding, with 3 years funding initially).

HOURS: Part-time, 28 hours per week.

LOCATION: Based at home with work across the region as needed, and a regular working day (at least fortnightly) in Area Meeting Office in Birmingham (40 Bull St, B4 6AF).

Quakers in Britain is looking for someone personable and self-motivated with experience of working with children, young people and families, to support Quaker communities in Central England and Leicester. We aim to create loving, inclusive and all-age communities where children and young people feel embraced and engaged.

To deliver this work you will need to be organised and adaptable, with good communication and planning skills, and knowledge of Quaker beliefs and practices, including Quaker decision making, culture and structures.

For further details and to apply, please visit our website.

Closing date: 8am on Monday 21 September 2026.

Interviews: Friday 2 October 2026. At the Priory Rooms, 40 Bull Street, Birmingham.

Quakers are committed to equality and welcome applicants from all identities and backgrounds. Selection is based solely on skills, experience, qualifications, and abilities. We aim to prevent age, belief, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender reassignment, marital status, nationality, neurodivergence, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or social class from being a barrier to employment. We aim for an equitable, user-friendly application process, and reasonable adjustments can be made if needed. As a Quaker organisation we expect all applicants and employees to uphold our values.

We are committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults. All candidates will undergo pre-employment checks in line with our Safer Recruitment guidelines.

Our Specialist Social Workers work closely with the Head of Expert Witness Service to ensure the delivery of high-quality independent social work reports (ISWRs). They supervise volunteer social workers, quality assure reports, carry out social work assessments themselves, and contribute towards volunteer training opportunities and service development to maintain excellence in social work practice. 

The core Specialist Social Worker role is three days per week, with the opportunity to work additional days by taking on service operations and referral coordination responsibilities. 

Benefits:

• Regular professional supervision from the Head of Expert Witness Service 
• Access to training and CPD opportunities to support Social Work England registration requirements 
• Professional development opportunities, including support to begin working towards a formal expert witness accreditation
• Laptop and mobile phone provided 
• Travel expenses reimbursed in line with expenses policy 

We are looking for experienced social workers to help take the Weekenders programme into its next chapter. You will join a small, ambitious charity and play a central role in growing a relational, child-focused programme across England.

THE OPPORTUNITY 

• Salary: starting from £40,000, subject to experience

• Hours: full time, 37.5 hours per week

• Location: home-based within England, with regular team co-working and travel

• Contracts: one permanent post and two 18-month fixed-term posts

• Flexibility: occasional evening or weekend delivery, usually around once per month

• Travel: across England, including occasional overnight stays; reasonable expenses are covered

ABOUT NOW FOSTER

Now Foster brings together social work, service design, lived experience and innovation to transform fostering in England. Our vision is to bring many more wonderful people into fostering so that more children and young people can experience stable, meaningful relationships with caring adults.

We are a small team with big ambitions. We value creativity, collaboration, learning and continuous improvement, and we work with partners who share our determination to do better for children and families.

ABOUT WEEKENDERS 

Weekenders is our flagship programme. We recruit and support weekend foster carers – known as Weekenders – who build regular, long-term relationships with children and young people supported by local authorities. It is about showing up, making a difference and becoming an adult a young person can count on.

The programme is entering an exciting period of growth. We are expanding our partnerships with Regional Care Cooperatives, Fostering Hubs and local authorities across England, currently including London, the South West, North West and North East.

THE ROLE – Lead delivery, develop people and stay close to practice

As a Weekenders Programme Manager, you will turn our ambition into consistently excellent delivery. You will lead the day-to-day support of applicants across an agreed portfolio of areas, making sure prospective Weekenders receive a warm, responsive and motivational experience and that our partners can rely on us to deliver what we have agreed.

This is a people-management and delivery role with a strong connection to practice. You will line-manage Journey Guides, manage a network of independent social workers (ISWs), lead our prep group training and undertake some intro chats yourself.

The role does not carry a statutory caseload. It does carry real responsibility for safeguarding, practice quality, operational oversight and relationships across a growing, geographically distributed programme.

Delivery Leadership: Lead programme delivery

• Take day-to-day responsibility for Weekenders delivery across an agreed portfolio of Fostering Hubs and local authority partners.

• Turn partnership agreements and local processes into clear applicant journeys, with roles, handovers and timescales understood by everyone involved.

• Plan capacity across Journey Guides, ISWs, prep group training and your own direct work so that delivery keeps pace with demand.

• Monitor applicant progress, identify delays or risks early and work with colleagues and partners to find practical solutions.

• Maintain a consistent Now Foster experience across regions while adapting thoughtfully to local contexts.

People Management: Manage and develop Journey Guides

• Provide reflective one-to-one and group supervision, clear objectives and timely feedback.

• Allocate work fairly, monitor workloads and create the structure needed for responsive applicant support.

• Coach Journey Guides in relationship-based, strengths-based and motivational conversations, using observation, role play and practice review where helpful.

• Support sound judgement, safe practice and professional boundaries, addressing performance or wellbeing concerns early and constructively.

• Build a connected team culture in which people share learning, ask for help and take ownership.

Practice Oversight: Manage ISWs and assure practice quality

• Build and maintain a reliable pool of qualified, registered ISWs to undertake initial home visits and teach on prep group training days.

• Coordinate ISW recruitment, onboarding, availability, allocation and briefing in line with our safer recruitment and practice arrangements.

• Set clear expectations for the quality, timeliness and tone of home visits, written outputs, training and feedback.

• Review quality, provide constructive feedback and address concerns promptly, while forecasting capacity and arranging cover.

Training: Plan, staff and lead prep group training

• Own the planning and delivery of prep group training across programme areas, including schedules, venues or online delivery, materials, communications and staffing.

• Facilitate and teach on prep groups, modelling inclusive, relational and reflective practice.

• Brief and support ISW co-facilitators so sessions are coherent, well-paced and grounded in the realities of fostering.

• Make sure applicants can reflect meaningfully on children's needs, safer caring, trauma-informed care, cultural matching and working with fostering services.

• Ensure observations and training feedback are recorded sensitively and on time, and use feedback to strengthen future delivery.

Relationships: Stay close to applicants and partners

• Undertake some intro chats, particularly where additional experience, judgement or continuity is needed.

• Step into complex applicant situations or difficult conversations without taking over work appropriately held by Journey Guides.

• Develop trusted operational relationships with Fostering Hubs, Regional Care Cooperatives, local authority fostering teams and other partners.

• Work through differences or blockages constructively, combining persistence with curiosity about other people's pressures and perspectives.

Programme Addurance: Safeguarding, quality and improvement

• Promote a strong safeguarding culture and ensure concerns are recognised, recorded and escalated appropriately.

• Maintain accurate, timely records and use pipeline data, feedback and practice observations to understand performance and improve delivery.

• Contribute to the development of tools, guidance, communications and digital workflows as Weekenders grows.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR – Experience, judgement and a strongly relational approach

Essential

You will need a recognised social work qualification and current registration with Social Work England. Beyond that, we are looking for someone who can combine strong practice judgement with people leadership and operational oversight.

You will thrive in this role if you have

• People-management experience – line-managing, supervising or developing staff, including giving feedback and supporting performance and wellbeing.

• Operational leadership – experience leading a service, programme or complex workflow with multiple people, deadlines and handovers.

• Children's services experience – in fostering, children's social care or a closely related setting, with a sound understanding of safeguarding and professional accountability.

• Training confidence – experience planning and delivering engaging adult learning, workshops or group training.

• Partnership skills – experience building productive relationships across organisational boundaries and working through operational challenges.

• A relational approach – able to hold warm, purposeful and appropriately challenging conversations with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

• Strong organisation and judgement – able to prioritise, delegate, manage dependencies and recognise what needs closer oversight or escalation.

• Digital and data confidence – comfortable using CRM and workflow systems, interpreting delivery information and turning insight into action.

The way you work matters

• Children first – you keep children's needs, relationships and long-term outcomes at the centre of decisions.

• Warm and reflective – you build genuine relationships, remain curious about your own impact and welcome feedback.

• Courageous and accountable – you name concerns, make decisions, follow through and own mistakes.

• Collaborative – you share learning generously while maintaining clear accountability.

• Adaptable – you are comfortable in a small, ambitious organisation where roles and systems continue to evolve.

Bonus points for

• Lived experience of the care system.

• Training or experience in motivational interviewing, systemic practice, coaching or another relational approach.

• Experience of foster carer recruitment, initial visits, assessment, prep groups, panel or post-approval support.

• Experience commissioning, coordinating or quality-assuring ISWs, associates or other independent practitioners.

• A practice educator, adult-teaching or training qualification, or substantial equivalent experience.

• Experience scaling a service across regions or working with a dispersed team and multiple delivery partners.

• Project, budget, contract, risk or resource-management experience.

• Experience of co-production, service design or continuous improvement.

WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOU

Joining Now Foster means being part of something different. We are small, ambitious and innovative, and you will have genuine influence over how Weekenders grows. You will stay close to practice and impact without carrying a statutory caseload.

You will join a supportive, collaborative team that cares about doing excellent work in a sustainable and humane way. We work a 37.5-hour week and trust people to manage their time with balance. The programme sometimes requires evening work, weekend training days or travel, and we flex working time around those commitments.

• Salary from £40,000.

• 28 days of annual leave plus bank holidays.

• Home-based working with regular co-working and team days.

• Travel and reasonable work expenses covered in line with Now Foster policy.

• The tools and technology you need to work effectively.

• Workplace pension scheme

• The opportunity to help build a bold, lasting and more relational approach to fostering.
   

We know strong candidates do not always meet every desirable criterion. If the purpose of the role excites you and your experience gives you a strong foundation for the essentials, we encourage you to apply.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS – Key dates and how to apply

• Applications close – Sunday 20 September 2026 at 23:30
• First-round interviews – Online planned for Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 September 2026
• Role play – For candidates progressing to the second round, before the second interview. 30 mins, completed online with one of our Weekenders.
• Second-round interviews– In person planned for Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 October 2026 (reasonable travel expenses covered)

Early application is encouraged. We may close the advert before 20 September if we receive a sufficient number of strong applications.

HOW TO APPLY

Please apply through the Charity Jobs listing by the closing date. Candidates invited to interview will receive further information about the format and preparation in advance.

You must have the right to work in the UK. Appointment is subject to current registration with Social Work England, a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check and our other safer recruitment requirements.

We recognise that candidates may use generative AI tools to support their application. This is acceptable, but your application must remain an authentic reflection of your own experience and motivation. Please tell us if and how you used AI as part of preparing it.

As a small charity unfortunately we do not have capacity to respond to unsuccessful candidates or offer feedback at the application stage. Please assume you have been unsuccessful on this occasion if you do not hear from us before the interview dates.

OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUALITY 

Now Foster is committed to being an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences. Recruitment decisions are made using fair, objective and transparent criteria, and we will make reasonable adjustments so the process is accessible.

If you want to help grow a pioneering programme, develop a thoughtful team and create more lasting relationships for children and young people, we would love to hear from you.

A fantastic opportunity has arisen to join our established and vital organisation as a Safe Accommodation Manager, overseeing a dynamic and dedicated team providing exceptional support services to survivors of domestic abuse within refuge and dispersed accommodation.

The right candidate will love a challange and be able to hit the ground running. You will thrive in an everchanging environement, working with clients and employees from all walks of life. This is an exciting role, making a real difference to the lives of individuals and their children, as they navigate their stay in refuge or dispersed refuge accommodation. It involves supporting a team of workers, to ensure the highest level of support is delivered to our clients at an important time in their lives. The role includes safeguarding our clients and team, ensuring procedures are followed and maintaining health and safety across the sites.

In return, we offer a supportive and friendly working environement, with regular management catch ups and team members to call on when needed. We offer an enhanced annual leave package, which increases with long service, and the addition of your brithday off. Enhanced sick pay is also offered to support you when you need ir. The wellbeing of our team members is important to us. We have an employee assistant programme offering free, 24/7 counselling and support, clinical supervision and an annual employee wellbeing day. You will also have access to a comprehensive training package.

Lead a service that changes lives

Do you want your leadership to have a direct and lasting impact on people affected by domestic abuse?

We are looking for an experienced, compassionate and motivated Domestic Abuse Service Manager to lead and develop our specialist services across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

This is much more than an operational management role. You will lead a committed team delivering support through safe accommodation, community and outreach services, helping ensure adults and children affected by domestic abuse receive safe, high-quality and empowering support when they need it most.

You’ll have the opportunity to shape services, strengthen partnerships and help define what excellent domestic abuse support looks like.

The opportunity

Reporting to the CEO, you will provide confident leadership across our domestic abuse services, managing a diverse team of practitioners, outreach workers, project staff, volunteers and others.

You’ll create a positive culture where staff feel valued, supported and able to deliver their best work, while maintaining high standards of safeguarding, quality and practice.

You’ll build strong relationships with police, housing, health, children’s services, courts, commissioners and voluntary sector partners, ensuring the voice, rights and safety of victim-survivors remain central.

As our Designated Safeguarding Lead, you’ll play a key role in developing a strong safeguarding culture across the organisation, ensuring concerns are managed effectively and learning leads to meaningful improvement.

You’ll also use data, outcomes and feedback to understand what is working, identify emerging needs and drive service development.

You will:

• Lead, support and develop a dedicated domestic abuse team.
• Oversee safe and effective delivery across refuge, community and outreach services.
• Champion trauma-informed, strengths-based and person-centred practice.
• Lead safeguarding for adults and children and contribute to multi-agency processes.
• Develop and deliver training on domestic abuse, safeguarding, risk and trauma-informed practice.
• Build effective relationships with commissioners and partner agencies.
• Monitor performance, analyse data and evidence the impact of our work.
• Contribute to service development, funding applications, tenders, policy and organisational learning.
• Ensure contractual, quality, health and safety and financial requirements are met.
• Promote equality, diversity, inclusion and anti-discriminatory practice.

About you

You’ll have experience of managing people and services, together with a strong understanding of domestic abuse and its impact on adults and children. Experience within domestic abuse, safeguarding, housing, social care, family support or a similar specialist service would be highly relevant.

You’ll combine strong leadership with genuine compassion. You’ll be confident managing risk and complex situations, able to challenge poor practice when necessary, and committed to developing others.

We’re looking for someone who is:

• An inspiring and supportive people manager.
• Experienced in trauma-informed, person-centred

Drive Case Manager (Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Intervention Worker)
Salary: £26,140-£31,400 depending on experience 
Hours: 35 per week 
Contract: Permanent
Location: Roles to be worked flexibly across Warwickshire  
Job Reference Number: 1750

A new and exciting opportunity has arisen within the organisation to deliver case management interventions across Warwickshire, as part of the Drive Project.  

Drive is an innovative national project that aims to improve the lives and safety of victims and children, by holding high-risk perpetrators to account. The project combines case management of perpetrators with a co-ordinated multi-agency response. 

As Case Manager, you will strive to make contact and work on a one-to-one basis with perpetrators to pro-actively secure engagement, influence attitudinal and behavioural change and link to complementary services. 

To do this, you will work alongside existing agencies to design a co-ordinated, intervention plan, addressing identified needs and risks, and promoting understanding of the impact of abusive behaviours.  

You will work closely with the IDVA’s to review risk, develop safety plans, and improve outcomes for all parties involved.  

You will be passionate and committed to working within a multi-disciplinary team and will have a demonstrable track record of working with complex need service users. This may be within the field of domestic abuse, and/or mental health, substance misuse and offending.  

Extensive training will be provided which may include the opportunity to gain accreditation for working with perpetrators of DA.   

Full driving licence is required. 

All posts will be subject to an enhanced DBS Disclosure. 

Applicants must be able to provide satisfactory evidence of their right to work in the UK at the application stage.

Sponsorship is not available for this post. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK that does not require employer sponsorship for the duration of the appointment.

Please apply directly on our website, via the link.

Closing date: There is no closing date for this advert.

The interview will consist of attitudinal testing and a formal interview panel. 

About Us
Young Life International is a fast-growing Christian charitable organisation. Our aim is to share the message of Jesus with young people all over the UK. We do this through building relationships with them and earning the right to be heard.

Our Operations team strives to help our staff and volunteers to thrive by anticipating, developing and delivering excellent operational services and our Finance team focuses specifically on providing excellent financial services in a Christ-centred way.

About the Role
As the Finance Co-ordinator you will build good relationships with the wider staff team and be a friendly and knowledgeable source of advice for all queries relating to finance. As a key member of the team, you will be the primary user of many existing processes, and will be the key person in implementing new systems we are planning to enable us to be more efficient. You thrive on knowing you are using both your numerical and organisational skills and your relational skills to support others.

More Details and How to Apply
Download the Application Pack for the following information:

• Welcome from the Operations Director

• How this role fits into the wider YLI and Operations Team

• Full Job Description and Person Specification

• Details of how to apply online (application form)

• Deadline and interview dates

• YLI Faith and Conduct Policies - check we're in alignment with one another's beliefs

Accessibility & Support 

We want to ensure our recruitment process is accessible to everyone. If you require any reasonable adjustments or accommodations at any stage of the application or interview process, please let us know. You can reach out to us in confidence at the email in our application pack, and we will be happy to support you.

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