Contract Social Work Jobs in Leeds
Home based, covering Buckinghamshire and surrounding areas
18.5 hours per week – fixed term appointment to the end of March 2026 with the possibility of extension
Full Time Equivalent Salary in the range £32,743- £40,019 (£16,372 – £20,010 pro rata per annum for 18.5 hours)
Are you a skilled and dedicated social worker eager to apply your expertise and experience to a new role? Do you want to be part of a supportive and collaborative team at one of the UK’s most successful adoption charities, rated outstanding by Ofsted since 2014?
We have been at the forefront of adoption services for more than 60 years, working with local authorities across the country. We offer a flexible and innovative work environment, and we are proud of our three successive outstanding ratings with Ofsted.
With your social work experience with children and families, you will support birth relatives whose children have a plan for adoption or have been placed for adoption. Working closely with colleagues in Buckinghamshire Council who will refer the relatives to PACT, you will provide support through individual sessions, support groups and drop-in sessions.
This role will include supporting birth relatives to meet with adoptive parents and to help birth relatives understand the importance for children, to keep connected to their relatives and significant people from their past.
Ideally, you will have previous experience of working with birth relatives whose children have been placed for adoption and you will have a good understanding of the adoption process. You will work with relatives from a range of diverse backgrounds, lived experiences and those who may be neuro diverse and you will need to demonstrate understanding, respectfulness and adaptability to your social work practice.
If you are looking for a rewarding career where you can make a real difference in the lives of children and families, we would love to hear from you.
Please visit our website for more information, how to apply and contact details for an informal chat about the role.
Closing date: Tuesday, 7th May 2024 at 5pm
Interviews will take place at our Head Office in Reading on Tuesday, 14th May 2024
We look forward to hearing from you!
PACT is a supportive and respectful place where people are passionate about making a positive difference to the lives of women, children and families from many different backgrounds. We continuously look to progress the ways in which we create families and bring people together and encourage applications from people across all communities. We are committed to ensuring that our people and our services reflect the diversity of the communities we serve and applications from people from under-represented groups are particularly welcomed.
PACT is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. Anyone joining our team is subject to PACT’s Safer Recruitment pre-appointment enquiries. These include the provision of documentation of the right to work in the UK, Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check, overseas police check where applicable and references covering a minimum 5-year period. All opportunities are based in the UK.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
We are excited to recruit a Community Organiser for our Bradford Parent Power project. This role offers a meaningful, paid professional development opportunity. The Brilliant Club will work in partnership with Queens’ College, Cambridge, Dixons Academies Trust and Go Higher West Yorkshire to engage with parents in Bradford. The parental engagement model used will be based on the successful Parent Power South London and Oldham Parent Power projects.
- Dixons are committed to making a difference where it matters most, working to improve the future for thousands of children in parts of the north of England where young lives are adversely affected by social and educational disadvantage. We believe that every child, regardless of their background, should be able to fulfil their academic potential and go on to thrive. Founded by Dixons City Academy, the trust has over 30 years’ experience in transforming education through their network of high-performing, non-faith academies, operating in Leeds, Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester.
- Queens’ College supports world-leading teaching and research in a beautiful and welcoming environment, and has been in the heart of Cambridge for more than five centuries. At Queens’ we know that attracting the best students from a diverse range of backgrounds is essential if we are to continue to thrive as a vibrant and creative academic community in the twenty-first century. We are committed to enabling the widest possible participation and are proud to be partnered with schools across Bradford through the Cambridge University Area Links scheme. We work with communities across the city to break down some of the myths and misconceptions that have grown up around selective Higher Education, giving young people accurate and up-to-date information to enable them to make the decisions that are right for them.
- Go Higher West Yorkshire is a partnership of 13 Higher Education (HE) providers, working collaboratively to reduce long-standing inequalities in access to, success in and progression from HE. GHWY was formed in 2010 and is hosted by the University of Leeds. We are impartial, not promoting any HE provider or course. Working with groups underrepresented in HE, we strive to overcome all barriers, misinformation and uncertainty concerning HE and to ensure people make confident and informed HE choices. We support educators and influencers help people into Higher Education, and by improving young people’s employability skills, help inspire a more high-skilled workforce.
Parent Power supports parents and carers to develop skills in community organising and advice and guidance on accessing higher education, empowering them to make change to support their children’s future and ensure their they have a fair chance in education and their future careers.
Working with us, the Community Organiser will:
- Support local pupils from underrepresented backgrounds by empowering their parent/carers to become higher education experts
- Receive community organising training from Citizens UK and develop transferable skills
- Join a nationwide community of community organisers making a significant impact on university access
Person specification
Time and Resource Management:
Essential
- Able to plan sessions in an organised and efficient manner and adhere to agreed deadlines.
- Excellent timekeeper, ensuring prompt arrival to meetings and 1-1s; well organised within 1-1s and sessions.
- Capable of adapting quickly to new systems/ processes.
Desirable:
- Confident in using digital systems for delivery of online sessions in parent meetings
- Experience of creating resources
External Stakeholder Knowledge and Management:
Essential
- Ability to work in a way that promotes the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.
- Professional approach to problem solving with a range of stakeholders involved in the project.
- Awareness of role as a visitor within a school and parent/carer community; understanding of the other commitments held by professionals within a school and by parent/carers
- Understanding of The Brilliant Club mission and the Widening Participation agenda nationally.
Desirable
- Prior experience of community-focused work or hold a qualification at Level 4 or above (as listed here)
- Understanding of the barriers young people face to university access and some of the ways these might be overcome.
- Understanding of the current climate in the UK school system and some of the challenges young people and parent/carers might be facing.
Communication:
Essential
- Awareness of how to engage parents and adapt university style learning for a school setting.
- Able to communicate in a timely and professional way with all project stakeholders
- Able to take a relational approach to communication with parent/carers, especially in 1-1s
- Able to explain research accessibly to non-expert audiences
Reflectiveness
Essential
- Able to identify strengths and areas of development, open to feedback.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Advocate
After a strong period of growth and additional funding, we now have an opportunity for an experienced Advocate to join team!
You will focus on carrying regular outreach across Leeds, along with working with local partners, services and third sector projects to find Gypsies and Travellers in the Leeds area. Outreach will cover roadside camps, private yards and people in homes.
This role and project represent the first step in working with Gypsies and Travellers in Leeds.
Position: Advocate
Location: Leeds/hybrid (work will include delivering outreach across Leeds)
Hours: Full-time, 35 hours per week
Salary: £24,829 per annum pro rata
Contract: initial 12-month contract with possibility to extend subject to funding
Benefits: The provision of workplace wellbeing support and activities, hybrid working where the role allows, flexible working and a range of family friendly policies and free parking.
Closing Date: 17th May 2024
The Role
You will be working holistically to support the community with a wide range of needs having a focus on members with complex needs and with families who require educational support. You will be helping members to develop the necessary skills to self-advocate through providing information, signposting and support.
Duties and responsibilities include:
- Advocacy - to provide members with daily accessible and equitable advocacy appointments. Topics may include welfare rights and entitlement, housing rights and support, health and wellbeing including mental health and equalities and justice
- Project and administration management
- Risk Management, to ensure good management within all the work particularly that all activities are risk assessed, safe and inclusive and follow processes and policies
- Partnerships, including building and maintaining a wide network of partner and services in support of advocacy delivery and community development
About You
We are looking for someone with knowledge of relevant legislation and rights, for example in relation to housing, welfare, family, health and equalities
You will have experience of working with:
- Groups or individuals experiencing exclusion and the barriers they face when accessing services
- Vulnerable people
- Safeguarding frameworks – making decisions and sharing information
About the Organisation
You will be joining a vibrant and brave grassroots organisation led by Gypsy and Traveller people in West Yorkshire. This is an established and award-winning civil society organisation with a national profile. Recognised as being innovative, brave and creative. The overall aim of the charity is to improve the quality of life for Gypsies and Travellers through addressing inequalities in homes, health, education, and employment, financial and social inclusion. There are a number of community-facing and strategic projects to achieve aims including advocacy, community development and youth work.
You may also have experience in areas such as Outreach, Community Outreach, Community Outreach Worker, Community Outreach Advocate, Community Outreach Support Worker, Community Outreach Support, Community Advocate, Advocate, Advocacy, Advocacy Worker.
PLEASE NOTE: This role is being advertised by NFP People on behalf of the organisation.
Leeds Media Centre - Travel across Bradford
Ref SOW-241
Are you a proactive, compassionate and collaborative individual with a proven record of working and engaging positively with people who have a history of social exclusion, youth offending or other vulnerable groups? Do you have strong experience of providing support, advice and advocacy and the ability to assess client’s needs?
If so, St Giles has an exciting opportunity for a talented individual to join us an Assertive Outreach Worker, where you will work as part of a high-quality and client-focused team that oversees a vital lived experience-led project that works across Bradford.
About St Giles Trust
An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes and the right support they need. Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others.
About this key role
Our successful candidate will assess referred clients, with reference to St Giles Trust assessment practices, and produce support and risk management plans based on these assessments, promoting inter-agency collaboration in the assessment and planning process. You will be expected to deliver a holistic support service, working independently or with colleagues as the situation dictates, providing practical help such as social and housing support, education, training and employment options, benefits work and debt advice.
We will also rely on you to develop and maintain relationships with referral agencies, ensuring a steady flow of appropriate referrals onto the scheme, and with regional agencies, including police and social services. Closing cases efficiently and positively, identifying a survival plan for the client that will identify agencies that can be used for on-going support and agencies that can be used if serious problems develop in the future, is also an essential aspect of this role.
What we are looking for
- To have worked on an offender-led support project, had personal experience of the criminal justice system, served a prison sentence, or still be serving a prison sentence in a prison within reach of Bradford
- Experience in negotiation with partner agencies to establish links to further aims of the project
- Experience of engaging successfully with people with challenging or complex needs
- To have a relevant qualification to a good standard, or be working towards one
- Sound knowledge of ‘County Lines’ and the Government’s Prevent programme
- Knowledge of services for offenders and patterns of offending in Leeds borough/s
- Excellent interpersonal, relationship-building and communication skills, verbal and written
- A flexible, collaborative and professional approach to your work.
Please note this role requires an Enhanced Adult and Children DBS with Children Barred list.
In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, season ticket loan and much more.
We are an equity and inclusion confident employer. We welcome all applications and we particularly encourage applications from people of the global majority (black, brown, multi- heritage) and those who identify as disabled, neuroexpansive, neurodiverse, with any protected characteristics and/or social barriers or challenges. We value the empowering and informative impact that all lived experiences and diversity of thought can offer the organisation.
St Giles will guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria set out in the Job Description for the vacancy.
To apply, please visit our website via the ‘Apply’ button.
Closing date: 11 p.m. 22 April 2024
Interview date: 30 April 2024 Leeds Media Centre
Embedded in schools across Leeds
Ref EIM-242
Are you a skilled practitioner, passionate about making a difference to children and young people in school who live in vulnerable contexts? We are looking for an Education Inclusion Mentor to join St Giles, working alongside the SAFE Taskforces, on an exciting new initiative to support young people at Risk of Serious Youth Violence.
This exciting initiative brings together schools and partners to Support young people with challenging behaviour, enabling them to Attend school regularly so they can fulfil their potential and prevent costly poor life outcomes by inspiring them to Exceed their expectations.
About St Giles and the Project
An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes, and the right support they need. Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions, and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others.
St Giles in partnership with Leeds schools and the Area Inclusion Partnership (AIP) and the Leeds Safe Task Force is looking to appoint a team of Education Welfare and Inclusion Mentors to support the delivery of this exciting DfE sponsored programme across the city. Candidates will model values and behaviours to help us to achieve the programme's ambition to support learning and engagement development for our identified cohort of children and young people who live in vulnerable contexts.
About this pivotal role
Have you worked with socially excluded or challenging young people and other vulnerable groups? Do you have personal experience of gangs, knife crime or the other issues they face? Are you able to provide 1:1 mentoring support? Then join us as an Education Inclusion Mentor.
Working as an Education Welfare and Inclusion Mentor you will have relevant experience of successfully engaging and working with children and young people in an inclusive, relational and restorative capacity to secure positive outcomes. You will understand of the needs of vulnerable children and young people, the communities they live in and of how disadvantage can impact on learning and life chances. We would actively encourage interest from candidates who reflect the diverse communities across Leeds.
As part of the team delivering this exciting new intervention, you will need to demonstrate that you have the ability to work flexibly, and at pace to meet appropriate deadlines with independence and be enthusiastic about working with a wide range of professional partners to bring about whole system change.
What we are looking for:
Our successful candidate will be embedded in a secondary school offering intensive one-to-one mentoring to young people who have been identified by their education setting as needing targeted support.
You will work closely with the education setting to prioritise safeguarding and contribute to a shared aim of reducing exclusions, reduce risky behaviour and raise aspirations.
To secure this role:
- You must have a proven track record of engaging positively with young people, young offenders or other vulnerable groups, plus providing support, advocacy, and the ability to assess clients’ needs.
- Want to work in an embedded setting in schools.
- Be able to establish positive and professional relationships with the children, young people, and professionals.
- Be able to build trust and create a safe space for children and young people in which to explore challenging and potentially traumatic issues and topics.
- Have experience of providing 1:1 mentoring to young people.
- Be able to assist with providing monitoring information and the evaluation of the project.
- Be able to represent the organisation externally as required. This includes the ability to embed yourself and work collaboratively with the partner schools and adapting to their culture.
As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting, and promoting the safety of our clients and successful applicants will be required to undertake an Enhanced Adult and Child with Child Barred list DBS check.
In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, clinical therapist sessions, life insurance (4 x annual salary), duvet days, season ticket loan, employee perks programme, eye care voucher and much more.
To apply please visit our website via the apply button.
Closing date: 11pm, Friday, 29th April2024. Interview: On a rolling basis
St Giles will guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria set out in the Job Description for the vacancy.
We are an equity and inclusion-confident employer. We welcome all applications and we particularly encourage applications from people of the global majority (black, brown, multi-heritage) and those who identify as disabled, neuroexpansive, neurodiverse, with any protected characteristics and/or social barriers or challenges. We value the empowering and informative impact that all lived experiences and diversity of thought can offer the organisation.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as the applications come in. Don’t miss your opportunity, apply now!
Key Purpose:
To work as part of a team that provide high quality services to farming people that come to RABI for support.
Key Responsibilities:
- Provide high quality information, advice and guidance in an empathetic and professional manner.
- Conduct a holistic needs assessment for each service user according to their individual circumstances.
- Working with each service user to establish the most appropriate sources of support and agree an action/support plan with them.
- Provide a face-to-face service when there is an over-riding need to do so by visiting service users.
- Collaborate with other agencies/service providers who can offer additional support options.
- Liaise with partners, ensuring that agreed actions are followed up.
- Log and communicate details of cases in a timely and accurate manner to ensure that records are up to date and the wider team has the information they need to provide support.
- Explore, assess and escalate any safeguarding concerns according to the RABI safeguarding policy.
- Contribute constructively to the development of the Service Delivery team and function, for the benefit of service users.
- Work constructively and collaboratively to solve problems with the support of colleagues.
- Be an ambassador for Service Delivery internally within RABI and with external organisations.
- Demonstrate commitment to Safeguarding, Equality and Diversity and Health and Safety promoting a safe and inclusive environment.
Person Specification:
Essential
- Experience providing services to vulnerable service users, listening and supporting in a non-judgemental way.
- Knowledge and insight into state benefits and complementary support services (whether national/local/statutory agencies.)
- Excellent communication skills, being able to establish rapport and build trust quickly.
- The ability to build a practical plan alongside a service user and adapt approach to different circumstances and personalities.
- Knowledge of data protection principles and how to apply them.
- Knowledge or experience of safeguarding best practice.
- Excellent IT software skills and aptitude to adapt to new systems and processes.
- Flexible, resilient and solution focussed working with sensitivity and integrity.
- Collaborative, constructive, and solution-focussed.
- Ability to work flexibly, depending on the needs of the team and of service users.
Desirable
- Farming background or knowledge of the farming community environment.
- Experience providing support remotely.
- Relevant qualifications in health and social care.
Other
- Use of own car, ability to travel to support service users / attend meetings.
Early applications are encouraged for this position as shortlisting and interviews will take place on a rolling basis. We reserve the right to close this advertisement early if we receive a suitable application prior to the deadline.
This role profile is not exhaustive and is subject to review in conjunction with the post holder according to future developments at R.A.B.I.
RABI is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and aims to ensure that all employment practices secure equality of opportunity and that no prospective or current employee receives less than favourable treatment at RABI as a result of their sex, sexual orientation, age, race, religion, belief, ethnic origin, disability, marital, or for any other reason which cannot be shown to be justifiable. Our recruitment process strives to ensure that individuals are selected only based on their relevant skills, experience, qualifications and abilities.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Circles Coordinator, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire (with flex to work in Avon)
3 or 3.5 days per week. £32,000-£38,640 pro-rata
Home based. 12 month fixed term position initially (extension expected)
Secondment applications welcomed. Applications by 5pm 24 April. Interviews 7 May.
As a Circles Coordinator you will make a real difference to preventing sexual abuse and sexual violence. This varied and rewarding role means working with people who have sexually harmed, a team of local volunteers and public protection colleagues. Join our dedicated regional team of 12 staff and 180 volunteers working towards the vision of ‘No More Victims’ of sexual abuse.
About Circles South West
We are an award winning independent charity providing services that prevent sexual re-offending by people who have sexually harmed, as well as support services for non-offending partners, family and friends impacted. Our core service is Circles of Support and Accountability; a ‘Circle’ is a small group of local volunteers who assist the safe integration of an individual who has sexually harmed, meeting with them over a year or more. Working closely with responsible statutory agencies we provide a complementary risk management approach, making communities safer. Informed by our practice expertise, our training and consultancy for professionals is designed to enhance skills, knowledge and understanding in order that they can more effectively engage with people who sexually harm and contribute more widely to the prevention of sexual abuse.
About You
With experience of working with adults convicted of sexual offences, you understand how local communities can support risk management and be committed to the safe integration in the community of people who have sexually harmed. You will be skilled in the management and support of volunteers, the critical success factor for Circles. You will assess referrals, coordinate Circles, review progress and share relevant information with police and probation.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.