Our teams - Children's

Our Assessment Teams which are based throughout Cambridgeshire are fast paced, lively and interesting. The Assessment Team would suit Social Workers who are proactive and adaptable, and who have a passion for ensuring that Children and Families in our area receive a positive first experience of our service. The Teams complete Section 17 Child and Family Assessments and carry out S47 investigations, with cases transferring at initial Child in Need meeting or Child Protection Conference. The work is immensely rich and varied day-to-day and allows for a high level of multi-agency working often to tight timelines. As well as Social Workers, each Assessment Team has a Team Manager, Senior Practitioners and Children’s Advice and Information Officers.

The Teams would welcome positive, friendly, practical people from a diverse range of backgrounds to join us and thrive in this exciting and rewarding setting.

The Teams manage complex caseloads of Child in Need, Children in need of Protection, Public Law Outline and care proceedings, focusing on children up to 12. They will all use a Motivational Interviewing approach where workers will act in partnership with children and their families to achieve sustainable change and improved outcomes for children. They are supported in this by a multi-disciplinary team that includes adult mental health workers, drug and alcohol recovery workers, and adult domestic abuse workers, and a bespoke intervention model. This is an exciting and creative time to work in these teams, and we would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce.

This team brings together services for young people including those who are homeless, experience mental ill health, family breakdown and are vulnerable to exploitation including criminal and sexual exploitation. It tends to work with young people over the age of 13. The team follows the ‘single trusted adult principle’, which means they provide staff to young people from within the service, so that they can remain under their care through all the various processes involved in Complex Safeguarding and Child Protection. The team is made up of social workers and alternatively qualified staff, who work together to achieve positive well-being and safety for adolescents across the area. The team has bases in Ely and Wisbech and would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance their workforce.

These teams work with children of all ages that are in care. They may be finding adoptive placements for them, or supporting long term fostering plans. There will also be some complex young people in residential care, and a group that we are supporting to return home to family members. Workers will need to have excellent skills in direct work with children and young people, and be committed to robust and timely permanence planning for all these children. We are highly aspirational for our children in care, and would expect workers to promote good health, educational achievement and developing positive relationships as the key foundations to a successful future. Teams consist of a Team Manager, Senior Practitioner and Social Workers. We would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce, and continue the work to promote positive outcomes for young people. These teams are located in Wisbech, Huntingdon and Ely.

The teams work with young people aged between 18-25, who have previously been in local authority care. The teams are supportive and committed to providing positive outcomes and are strong advocates for our young people. Workers hold a caseload of young people with differing levels of need and support in terms of housing, education, emotional and mental health and budgeting. Good quality Pathway Plans are key to the achievement of the ambitious plans we have for our young people, and these are completed in full partnership with the young person concerned. The teams include a Team Manager, Senior Practitioner, Social Workers and Personal Advisors, and are based in Ely and Huntingdon. We would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce.

The team supports disabled children across the county, ensuring that the statutory duties and responsibilities of social care are met within legislative frameworks. This includes Assessments, Reviews, Planning, Child Protection and Safeguarding. All support and services provided are understood within the family’s natural and community resources. The service is made up of five social work teams, of which one team specifically meets the needs of eligible Disabled or Autistic (with EHCP) young people between the ages of 18-25. Each team is made up of a Team Manager, Senior Practitioners, Social Workers and Child Practitioners (for the 0-18 service). The team has bases in Cambridge, Huntingdon, St Ives and Wisbech. We would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce.

The Fostering service provides a range of fostering placement options. This includes short term, long term, respite, supported lodgings, short breaks for disabled children, kinship and connected persons as well as Special Guardianship placements. We also approve and oversee Private Fostering Placements as well as provide PACE foster care to support young people who have been arrested and processed by the police.

The fostering service approves foster carers to look after children aged 0-18 years. Many of the children placed have experienced difficulties including abuse or neglect before being fostered. Some children and young people present with very challenging behaviour, special needs or complex health conditions. We do this by assessing, registering, supervising, supporting and training a wide range of carers with a range of skills to offer the diverse placements needed by Cambridgeshire’s Children in Care.

This is a really exciting time to join the service as we are continuing to develop and grow our service and to aspire to providing excellent fostering provision to Cambridgeshire children and an excellent and competitive offer to our valued foster carers. We would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce.

As part of the government changes to improve the adoption process they have asked local authorities and Voluntary Adoption Agencies working in the same areas to join together to form Regional Adoption Agencies (RAA). The Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) which is a joint venture between Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, brings together the very best talent, experience and energy to increase the number of adopters across the county and give children loving & stable families.

The Regional Adoption Agency provides a range of services to children and their families including children who are requiring an adoptive placement, supporting those caring for children in a permanent placement as well as the birth families for those children who are placed for adoption.

There are three teams within the RAA; Recruitment & Assessment, Family Finding and the Adoption & Special Guardianship Support Teams, all of which offer varied and satisfying work with children and their permanent placements.

The RAA welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce.

The Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub is based at Chord Park in Godmanchester, and sits as part of the Integrated Front Door Services, which includes the Out of Hours service, the Missing, Exploited and Trafficked Hub (MET HUB) and the Early Help Hub. It works across both Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Authorities.

The team undertakes MASH enquiries on referrals concerning children and their families, to establish whether the threshold is met for statutory intervention or whether early help is a more appropriate intervention. As a social worker in MASH you would lead on the MASH enquiry supporting the Advice and Information Officers and collating the multi- agency information to complete an analysis and recommendation as to what level of intervention is required. The team is made up of Team Managers, senior practitioners, qualified social workers and Children Information and Advice Officers. If you like to build up rapport with families to better understand their needs, enjoy working in a multi- agency environment gathering and analysing information and are motivated and passionate about considering the impact on the child’s lived experience then the MASH is the place for you. We would welcome applications from a diverse range of workers to enhance our existing workforce.