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Social Worker - Fostering & Adoption

At Barnardo's, we believe every child deserves a safe, stable, and loving home. We're looking for a passionate Social Worker to join our Fostering & Adoption Service, supporting foster carers, adopters, children, and young people to achieve the best possible outcomes.

About the Role

You will provide support, supervision, and assessment services to foster carers and adopters, ensuring children and young people receive safe, nurturing care. You'll work closely with Trusts, families, and partner agencies, contributing to high-quality services where the voice of the child is central to practice.

Key responsibilities include:

Supporting and supervising foster carers and adopters
Completing fostering and adoption assessments
Producing high-quality reports and maintaining accurate records
Attending multi-agency meetings and reviews
Delivering training and support to carers and adopters
Promoting safeguarding and positive outcomes for children and young people

About You

You will be:

A qualified Social Worker registered with NISCC
Experienced in fostering, adoption, or residential care
Skilled in assessment, report writing, and partnership working
Passionate about delivering child-centred practice

Why Barnardo's?

Join a supportive and values-driven organisation committed to changing children's lives, with opportunities for professional development and career progression.

Applying

Please demonstrate how your skills, knowledge, and experience meet the requirements of the Person Specification and Job Description.

Diversity & Inclusion

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to creating an inclusive workplace. Flexible working arrangements will be considered where possible.

The successful applicant will be required to undertake an Enhanced Access NI with Child and Adult Barred List Check.

Please note: This vacancy may close early due to high application volumes. We encourage early applications.

Pay & Reward Framework

We appreciate our colleagues' dedication and their commitment to delivering excellence in the vital work we do, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.

We are committed to a rounded colleague experience with an approach to both pay and rewards that are fair, attractive, and progressive. This is in support of our strategic ambition to ensure Barnardo's is a place everyone can belong, grow and thrive.

The salary range advertised is in line with our pay principles, for consistency and fairness while recognising the skills and experience applicants bring to the role. Appointing salaries can be discussed further at appointment stage; we do seek to appoint within this range always exercising responsible stewardship.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

Barnardo's require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)

Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
Service related sick pay from day 1
Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
Cycle2work scheme
Interest free season ticket loans
Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
20% discount at Barnardo's stores
Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

Our basis and values