Newly Qualified Social Worker - opportunities across England

Location Opportunities across England

Closing Date: 6th May 2024

Salary £31,709 rising to £36,585 plus key milestone payments up to £2,000. And London weighting of £4,885 if applicable

The Vacancy

Few jobs are as important as protecting a child’s needs and wishes. That’s why our training programme gives Newly Qualified Social Workers (NQSWs) an exceptional grounding in children’s social care. Over three years, we’ll equip you to do something vital and amazing: to be the voice of the child in family court proceedings.

In 2024 we are planning to recruit up to 6 NQSWs to join us and because we operate across England from 30+ offices, we have opportunities across the country. From Brighton and Chelmsford on the south coast, all the way up to York and Sheffield, we are recruiting for the very best talented, passionate individuals who can relate to our purpose.

Working with us is very different to working with a local authority – as you’ll hopefully discover. You could be supporting children who are involved in divorces, adoptions or care proceedings. They’ll be depending on you and your determination and resilience are essential, along with a gift for communication.

We want to develop social workers into highly skilled professionals who’ll ensure that children come first in a complex legal system. To this end, we’ve developed an Academy to help every NQSW reach their full potential.

Our Social Work Academy enables you to develop practice skills in a safe environment. Led by expert social workers, it will support your journey, enhance your expertise and ensure you work with confidence. As well as an empowering peer network, you’ll have access to a mentor plus high levels of reflective supervision. Over the course of a structured three-year programme, you’ll develop professional maturity, gain hands-on experience and achieve a respected qualification.

In year one, you’ll follow the ASYE (Assessed & Supported Year in Employment) with us, gaining core skills from some of our 78 practice educators. In year two, to broaden your experience you will be offered shadowing, training and extensive support to develop you skills in public law . Year three will see you enjoy further academic development opportunities, as your caseload gradually grows. Then, once you’ve completed the course, we’ll help you build a successful, fulfilling career, where you’ll apply your specialist skills, including those required in court.

Alongside the advertised salary we are please to offer payments linked to meeting key milestones up to £2,000 upon successfully completing the 3 year programme.

To find out more, we encourage you to read the Job Description (including Person Specification), NQSW Handbook by going to ‘Documents’ section and the key milestones document to understand how these payments will be paid.

Still interested?

If so, let us tell you a little about the basic criteria you need to be aware of. We’re looking for soon-to-be qualified Social Workers (or those who’ve gained a recognised qualification since 2023) to join us. You will already have (or shortly will have) an undergraduate qualification a 2:1 or above, or if a postgraduate qualification this needs to be merit or higher.

You will also need to have to be able to register with Social Work England by July so that you can commence your employment with us during September. Finally, to be eligible for the ASYE you will need to have not held a social work role previously or have commenced another ASYE programme.

If you fulfil these criteria, then we can imagine you would like to know where we are recruiting across the country.

Birmingham	Leeds	Plymouth
Brighton	Liverpool	Sheffield
Bristol	London (Central)	Stevenage
Chelmsford	London (Croydon)	York

Hopefully one (or more) of these locations interest you but we can imagine there is more you would like to find out about Cafcass, the Academy and the programme to help you decide if this is the right next step for your career. Therefore, we are hosting a webinar (on Teams) on the 24th April at 5pm. Please register to attend below.

If you are happy to go ahead and commence your application in the meantime, then of course feel free to do so, we look forward to receiving it and will be in contact with our webinar details to provide you with further insight.

If you have any questions to do with the role please email Debbie Blackshaw, if your question is to do with the recruitment process or HR-related please email Priya Kadara.

Be Their Voice

We are Cafcass – the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service – and we represent children in family court cases in England.

Independently advising the family courts about what is safe for children and in their best interests, we speak up for over 140,0000 children every year when the family court makes critical decisions about their futures, ensuring their needs, wishes and feelings are heard.

Watch our video to find out we don’t just listen to children’s voices but we can be their voice.

If our purpose resonates with you, then if you join us you will work alongside like-minded people in a diverse, inclusive and supportive organisation. You will be trusted to work flexibly and independently using outstanding technology (e.g. touchscreen laptops, iPhone, all with first class support, including IT Trainers) with access to substantial resources (e.g. Cafcass Library has over 27,000 resources on social work, child protection and related topics). You will also have opportunities to develop, whatever team you join, wherever you are in the country and at whatever stage you are at in your career.

Whether you join us in one of our social work roles that work directly with children and families or our corporate and business services teams who provide technology, support and expertise, you will have the chance to make a difference for children and families. You can also find out more at www.cafcass.gov.uk/careers.

Wellbeing

The wellbeing of our colleagues is something we are truly passionate about, as demonstrated by everyone having four dedicated, additional days per year when they are encouraged to spend time focusing on their health and wellbeing.

Colleagues can also have a health and wellbeing cash plan, for which Cafcass pays the basic premium (you can upgrade to include family members), which allows them to claim back some costs of routine health expenses, including dental check-ups, eye tests, physiotherapy sessions and more.

Overall, we foster a holistic approach to supporting our colleagues, benefitting physical, mental and financial health. This is led by a dedicated in-house team, the benefits of which include meaning support is targeted and specific to what colleagues need. Our team can also offer support and guidance when it comes to specific health conditions, such as neuro-diverse conditions, cancer and the menopause.

Our wellbeing offer is further strengthened by an external Employee Assistance Provider (EAP) which provides a free confidential support service 24 hours a day. This means access to clinical and professional expertise which gives you a chance to talk about all kinds of work and personal issues.

If this wasn’t enough, we are especially proud that over 125 colleagues have completed training and receive ongoing support to act as Health and Wellbeing Champions. Furthermore, we have nearly 100 people that have trained to be Mental Health Allies.

Diversity

We represent children and families from diverse backgrounds and having a diverse workforce helps us to fulfil this responsibility authentically.

It also helps us to grow, evolve and innovate, so we particularly welcome applications from individuals from diverse backgrounds as we strive to ensure our workforce reflects the diversity of the children and families we work with.

We are also a Disability Confident Leader, which further underlines our commitment to employ, train, retain and develop the careers of colleagues with disabilities.

Our Diversity Networks provide a safe space for colleagues with shared aspects of identity and lived experience – supported by allies across the organisation. The networks help ensure we provide an inclusive working environment and a service which promotes the diversity and uniqueness of children and families from all backgrounds.

Our current networks include:

Ability Matters

Colleagues with disabilities and long-term health conditions.

Carers Network

Colleagues with additional caring responsibilities for someone close to them who has a disability or long-term health condition.

Faith Network

Colleagues who are part of, or have an interest in, religious or spiritual faith communities.

Kaleidoscope Network

Colleagues from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.

Mental Health Network

Colleagues who experience, or have an interest in, Mental Health issues.

Pride Network

Colleagues who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans – LGBT+.

Together

‘Together with Children and Families’ (which we just call ‘Together’) is the name of our relationship-based practice framework. It applies to the work of every individual in Cafcass, from Social Workers to Leaders and includes our Corporate and Business Support teams.

It is at the heart of what we do and is made up of our values, how these values work in practice, the tools to use to incorporate these values in our work and the impact this will have on the children and families we serve.

This framework encourages us to be pro-active and to look for the strengths in ourselves and others. It also enables us to build positive relationships with our colleagues, our partners and most importantly, with the children and families with whom we work.

We look forward to telling helping you learn more about Together should you join us.

Benefits

We know if you join us you want to be rewarded in a variety of ways, including time away from work to spend time with those important to you, manage your financial present and future, whilst also be trusted to manage your work/life balance.

Therefore, in addition to our unique, holistic approach to supporting your health and wellbeing we also provide:

Generous holidays

28 days holiday (including three for Christmas) rising to 33 days with five years continuous service, which could include your current employment. You can also buy more holiday or sell any you do not need.

Excellent pension

19.4% employer contribution to Local Government Pension scheme, potentially building on your current pension.

Flexible working

Most colleagues work in a hybrid way, having the benefits of working both from the office and home, we also accommodate flexible working requests (e.g. 9-day fortnights).

Exclusive discounts

Generous discounts with wide range of companies covering leisure, technology, travel, personal finance, fashion and supermarkets.

Professional fees

Social work colleagues have their annual Social Work England membership fees reimbursed.

Car leasing schemes

We have our own scheme for colleagues that travel a significant number of business miles, as well as an open scheme through a third party.

This list is just a selection of main benefits and we have a range of policies and processes that allow us to support our colleagues - and their families – and we look forward to providing you with further information about these in due course.

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Cafcass Privacy Statement

Cafcass is committed to ensuring the security and privacy of your personal data. We need to gather and process information or ‘data’ about you in order to make decisions about whether to employ you. We do this in a manner which is compliant with our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 (the ‘2018 Act’) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) in respect of data privacy and security.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during the application process, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Cafcass is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This privacy notice applies to all job applicants. This notice does not form part of any subsequent contract of employment. We may update this notice at any time.

If you are applying to work for us then it is important that you read this notice so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

Data Protection Principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.

2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.

3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.

4. Accurate and kept up to date.

5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.

6. Kept securely.

As defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Cafcass is the Data Controller and ultimately responsible for ensuring the data you provide is kept secure, processed correctly and that you understand your legal rights in relation to the data you provide.

The recruitment software we use via this website is supplied by IRIS Software Group Limited and they are defined as a Data Processor under the GDPR. They will only process your data in accordance with our instructions.

IRIS can be contacted at: 4th Floor Heathrow Approach, 470 London Road, Slough, England, SL3 8QY

For Data Protection enquiries, please contact the Help Desk at support@networxrecruitment.com

THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE WILL COLLECT ABOUT YOU

‘Personal data’ means information which relates to a living person who can be identified from that data (a ‘data subject’) on its own, or when taken together with other information which is likely to come into our possession. It includes any expression of opinion about the person as well as indications of any intention in respect of that person. It does not include anonymised data or aggregated data where the individual’s data is no longer identifiable.

There are also “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

During the application process we may collect, store, and use some or all of the following categories of personal information about you:

• Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses.

• Date of birth and age.

• Gender.

• National Insurance number.

• Recruitment information including copies of right to work documentation, references* and other information included in a CV and cover letter or application form along with any pre-employment assessments as part of the application process, including recording of video which may include your participation in an online webinar / meeting or recording of an interview.

• Previous employment information including previous employers, job titles/positions held, work history.

• Professional memberships and qualifications.

• Professional development and training records.

• Images including photographs/video including where obtained by CCTV (for example when attending a Cafcass building for interview).

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:

• Information about your race or ethnicity, religious/philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation.

• Information about your health, including any medical conditions, health and previous sickness absence*.

• Information about criminal convictions and offences and records of DBS checks completed*.

(*We will only obtain information about your health, undertake a DBS check or take up employment references if making a conditional offer of employment.)

HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?

We collect personal information about you at several stages during the application and recruitment process, either directly from you (for example your CV) or sometimes from an employment agency or other background check provider. Systems we use to collect personal information may include third party software e.g. Candidate management systems and online assessments. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, reference agencies, DBS checks and checks against external databases e.g. Social Work England membership.

HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We will only collect and process your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

1. Where we have a legitimate interest in assessing your suitability for the role you have applied for.

2. To make decisions about whether to employ you and to determine the terms and conditions of any subsequent offer of employment.

3. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation such as to confirm your identity and ensure that you are eligible to work in the UK, or to check that you hold the necessary qualifications and professional registration.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to progress your application for employment and this may prevent you from working for Cafcass.

HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

”Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

1. Where it is necessary for carrying out legal rights or obligations in respect of your application for employment, including pertaining to criminal convictions and offences.

2. Where it is needed for reasons of substantial public interest, such as for equal opportunities and diversity monitoring.

3. Where it is necessary for the purposes of occupational health or assessment of your working capacity.

4. Where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

5. Where you have already made the data public.

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

• We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace, to assess your fitness to work and to provide appropriate workplace adjustments and support.

• We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting as required by the Equalities Act 2010 and the Specific Duties Regulations 2011, and to inform relevant Cafcass equality strategies. Such processing is therefore in the substantial public interest and in line with legislation.

Do we need your consent?

You are not required to provide us with particularly sensitive information, however if you do provide this to us then we do not need your consent to further use your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law as outlined above. If you choose not to provide us with this information then this may limit our ability to undertake meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting. If you do not provide us with information about your health or disability then this may limit our ability to adequately assess your fitness to work or provide appropriate workplace adjustments or support.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so, or to request your consent for that specific processing if that is necessary.

Please note that where it is required or permitted by law, we may process your personal information in compliance with the above rules without your further knowledge or consent.

INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will be where such processing is necessary to carry out our legal obligations and provided we do so in line with our DBS Policy and Procedure and the relevant legislation. We will do this in order to make safe recruitment decisions and minimise risk to children.

The level of detail we obtain in relation to criminal convictions will be proportionate to the nature of the role for which you have applied.

AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING

We may use automated filtering tools to reject your application if you do not meet the minimum requirements for the role you have applied for based on the information you provide. Thereafter, we also make use of automation during the selection process for example to collate scores from candidate assessments. Such processes do not however make any decisions about your application, with decisions on suitability or offers of employment being taken by hiring managers who have received appropriate training in recruitment and selection.

DATA SHARING

We may need to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers or other relevant bodies.

We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We will not transfer your personal information outside the EU.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to process your application or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

”Third parties” includes third-party suppliers/service providers such as our HR/Payroll software and service provider (Midland HR), Candidate Management software (Networx, ), Selection assessments and pre-employment checks (t-three, Tazio, Great With Talent and GB Group), training/onboarding platforms (Learning Pool/Learning Nexus), Occupational Health (HML Ltd), or other relevant governmental or statutory bodies e.g. Social Work England.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other bodies?

All our third-party service providers or other bodies with whom we need to share your information are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. Third parties who act as data processors are bound by the same legislation as ourselves; Data Protection Act 2018 (the ‘2018 Act’) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’).

Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those parties who have a legitimate need to know in the processing of your application. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. All Cafcass staff handling personal data are required to comply with the Cafcass Employee and Worker Data Protection Policy, the Cafcass Information Assurance Policy and the Cafcass IT Policy and Procedures. This includes undertaking mandatory training in Information Assurance.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator (the Information Commissioner’s Office) of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

DATA RETENTION

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. For unsuccessful applicants we will retain records of your application for a period of 2 years. Thereafter records of your application will be deleted.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

We collect your data for statistical analysis or to extract it as part of a successful employee process in to our HR/Payroll system.

RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

• Request correction of any inaccuracies in the personal information that we hold about you.

• Request erasure of your personal information where we are not entitled to process it or is no longer necessary to process it for the purpose it was originally corrected.

• Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest and you think you’re your rights and interests outweigh our own, and you wish us to stop.

• Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to restrict the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you wish to request erasure, correction, or to restrict processing of your personal data, then you should contact us at HR@cafcass.gov.uk

If you wish to make a Subject Access Request then this should be done following the procedure set out in the Subject Access Request Policy. Further information is available on our website Freedom of Information and Subject Access Request page.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse your request if it is clearly unfounded or excessive.

DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any concerns about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact DataProtectionOfficer@cafcass.gov.uk . You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

If you have any general queries about how we handle your personal data then please contact HR@cafcass.gov.uk .

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