Advanced Social Worker

Are you an experienced social worker who is passionate about fostering and building strong, supportive communities around children and young people?

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join Portsmouth City Council's Fostering Service as an Advanced Social Worker specialising as our Mockingbird Liaison Worker. This is a fantastic opportunity to play a leading role in developing our established Mockingbird programme and helping foster families feel connected, supported and equipped to provide stable, nurturing homes.

About the Mockingbird model

Portsmouth is a south coast pioneer of the award-winning Mockingbird programme. The model creates an extended-family style network known as a constellation, bringing together up to ten satellite fostering households around a central hub carer. Through peer support, planned breaks, practical help and social activities, these communities strengthen relationships and provide valuable support to foster families and the children they care for.

About the Role

Working closely with the Mockingbird Team Leader, you will take a lead role in supporting our hub home carers and developing our Mockingbird constellations.

You will recruit foster carers into the constellations and work alongside families to build supportive extended-family communities for children and young people. You will promote effective communication between foster carers, fostering colleagues and social work teams, helping everyone work together to achieve the best possible outcomes for children.

You will also support the effective delivery and ongoing development of the model, providing performance and monitoring information to demonstrate its impact and ensuring the programme continues to operate in line with Fostering Network guidance

You will be a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England, with relevant post-qualifying experience in children and families social work and experience of working with foster carers and children in care.

You will bring a strong understanding of fostering, safeguarding and relevant legislation, alongside knowledge of therapeutic parenting approaches and how these can support carers to meet the needs of children who have experienced trauma.

We are looking for someone who can build positive relationships, communicate confidently with children, families, foster carers and professionals, and appropriately challenge practice when needed. You will be resilient, organised and solution-focused, with the ability to work independently while being an active and supportive member of the wider fostering team.

Experience of the Mockingbird Family Model or another peer-supported framework would be an advantage, as would experience of project coordination or community engagement

Please ensure that you download and read the full job profile attached for the details and expectations of this role, paying particular attention the section 'Who is the person' as you will need to refer to this when completing your Personal statement on your application.

Additional Information

Working arrangements:You will be required to work a minimum of 2 days in the Office per week