Two Practice Leader roles available
Gateshead Council Children’s Social Care job roles
At Gateshead, their vision is that all children and families, regardless of their background, are at the heart of everything the council does - ensuring all children can thrive and meet their full potential.
The council’s plans for 2025 reflect this vision and ambition. They will have an even greater focus on embedding trauma informed approaches, and inclusive practice, across all their services as they believe that this delivers the best outcomes for children and young people.
The council are committed to continuing to develop services which support their cared for children and young people through social work practice in addition to the resources for children and young people. They take their role as corporate parents seriously and are committed to ‘Be the Difference’ for children and young people who they care and support. Sufficiency, whether via Fostering, Kinship or Residential homes is key to the support the council offers.
Gateshead Council are currently recruiting for senior management roles for their Children in our Care and Care Experienced Service and Children in our Care Resources and Sufficiency.
The post holders will need to provide effective strategic leadership, planning and robust performance management and oversight for these areas whilst promoting a culture which values learning, reflection and acceptance of accountability to ensure the continuous development and improvement of the service.
You must have effective people management, performance management and quality assurance within a children’s services setting to ensure the focus is always on achieving better outcomes for children, young people and their families with the provision of the highest possible professional standards of social work. As such you must hold a Social Work qualification to degree level or equivalent and be Social Work England registered. A project management qualification is desirable although not essential.
Practice Lead, Children in our Care and Care Leavers
The council have three Children in our Care teams who support young people to ensure their needs and arrangements are in place for their current and longer-term care.
The council’s Care Leavers team is well established and continues to support young people if they are in care after their 16th birthday to participate in the assessment, preparation and review of the Pathway Plans, and provide continued support to improve the outcomes for the young people leaving care.
Practice Lead, Residential, Fostering and Kinship Care
The council have an established residential service with four children’s homes, all with experienced management teams. In addition to this, they are in the process of opening a further two homes over the next three to 12 months. Their aim is to support young people to grow self- esteem, build positive relationships and trust, re engage in education, develop independence skills and look to build a brighter future for themselves.
The council’s kinship care team is now well established and supports children and young people to live full-time or most of the time with a relative or friend who isn’t their parent.
Their experienced fostering team support over 150 fostering households. They are also part of Mockingbird, which is one of several innovative programmes that The Fostering Network runs to improve foster care and outcomes for fostered young people.
Find out more about both of these roles from the links below: