Independent Visitor Social Worker

This role has a starting salary of £39,355 per annum, based on a 36-hour working week.

Are you looking for an exciting new challenge and opportunity to develop your career within Social Work? Are you passionate about promoting positive life experiences for our children in care?

Surrey County Council has a fantastic opportunity for a Social Worker to join our Independent Visitor Service (IVS) team. The team's office base is Quadrant Court in Woking, with the added flexibility of hybrid working.

We are an expanding team so you will be joining at a time of development. The team has an inclusive culture where your thoughts and ideas will be welcomed.

Rewards and Benefits

• 26 days' holiday rising to 28 days after 2 years' service and 30 days after 5 years' service (31 days after 1st January 2025)
• Option to buy up to 10 days of additional annual leave
• An extensive Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support health and wellbeing
• Up to 5 days of carer's leave per year
• Paternity, adoption and dependents leave
• A generous local government salary related pension
• Lifestyle discounts including gym, travel, shopping and many more
• 2 paid volunteering days plus 1 team volunteering day per year
• Learning and development hub where you can access a wealth of resources

About the Team

The Independent Visitor Service recruits, assesses, monitors and supports Independent Visitors for children in care. The IVS sits within the Quality and Performance Division within Children, Families and Lifelong Learning. Being located outside of Children's Social Care teams supports the independent nature of the volunteering role. Its position within CFLL helps to promote effective working relationships with the child's professional network. We work hard to maintain our volunteer's independence, whilst also ensuring we support our colleagues in the Children's Social Care teams, so they can in turn support these potentially life-long relationships for children in care.

About the Role

In your role as Independent Visitor Social Worker, you will use your excellent interpersonal skills to recruit, train, assess, and support adult volunteers. You will match children in care with an Independent Visitor and monitor and support this relationship to ensure the match continues to meet the child's needs.

In a typical day you could be meeting with an IV or a child to gain their feedback on how the match is going, meeting with a prospective IV to complete an assessment as part of their recruitment journey, or meeting with professionals to complete a risk assessment.

Shortlisting Criteria

To be shortlisted to interview for this position your application will clearly evidence:

• Experience of working with children in care
• Experience of being a volunteer or working/supporting volunteers
• A broad knowledge of practice and legislation, including safeguarding
• Registered with Social Work England and hold a Social Work degree or equivalent qualification
• You will need the willingness and ability to travel extensively around the county to meet the demands of this role
• Ability to be flexible and work some evenings and weekends. For example, we hold monthly virtual support groups for IVs in the evenings. Face-to-face training for IVs is held at the weekends 2 or 4 days per year. Many of the IVs we support work fulltime, so we are flexible to meet with them outside of normal working hours, which may occasionally be during an evening or weekend.

Contact us

Please contact us for any questions relating to the role. This could be to discuss flexible working requests, transferable skills or any barriers to employment.

For an informal discussion please contact Veronica McKee by telephone at .

The job advert closes at 23:59 on 21/04/2024 with interviews to follow. You will be required to deliver a 10-minute presentation as part of the interview.

Our Commitment

Surrey County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. A guaranteed interview will be offered to all disabled applications where:

• The candidate has evidenced the minimum criteria for the role through their application
• The candidate has chosen to share that they have a disability on the application form

Our application form and onboarding process will provide an opportunity to request any reasonable adjustments for the interview and/or the role.

We want to be an inclusive and diverse employer reflecting the community we serve and particularly welcome applications from all underrepresented groups.