* Adoption Social Worker role that attracts a retention bonus of £1,500 per annum, a zone 1-2 travel pass, and up to two additional salary increments for relevant post-qualifying awards.
Adopt London North
Adopt London North is the Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) for 6 North London boroughs - Haringey, Enfield, Camden, Hackney, Barnet, and Islington (our host borough). On behalf of our boroughs, we provide all adoption services which include:
- Providing support to adoptive families, adopted adults and birth parents (Adoption Support team)
- Recruiting, assessing and supporting prospective adoptive parents (Recruitment and Assessment team)
- Family finding and transition planning for children with an adoption plan (Family Finding team).
Adopt London North (ALN) is a group of around 40 friendly and supportive staff, based in our dedicated office space in the Laycock Centre, N1 1TH (just 2 minutes’ walk from Highbury & Islington station). Our staff group is very stable, and you will benefit from working in a team of experienced and specialist adoption social workers.
Adopt London North is part of a wider partnership called Adopt London that covers 24 London boroughs and over 160 staff. We work together to develop and share best practice, and to connect people impacted by adoption across London. We have exciting, shared projects in place to develop our practice across early permanency, matching practice, models of adoption support, and our ‘Black Adoption Project’ which is committed to reducing disparities for Black children in adoption by addressing systemic and cultural barriers throughout the system.
You can find out more about Adopt London here: https://adoptlondon.org.uk/ and about the Black Adoption Project here: https://adoptlondon.org.uk/want-to-adopt/our-children/black-adoption-project/
The role
We are looking to recruit Social Workers to both our Adoption Support team and our Recruitment & Assessment team.
The Adoption Support team runs a busy service supporting adoptive families, adopted adults, and birth families. Work includes arranging therapeutic support under the Adoption & Special Guardianship Support Fund, case working with families who need advice, support and advocacy, accessing and sharing adoption records with adopted adults, and helping birth families and adoptive families remain in contact. The team also provides support through groups run for a range of clients including adopted adults and parents of adopted teenagers.
The Recruitment & Assessment team lead our work to encourage people to consider adoption, and to provide training, support, and assessment to take prospective adopters to the point of approval, and through the family finding process to the successful placement of a child or children in the family. Work includes dealing with initial enquiries, undertaking prospective adopter assessments, providing specialist training for prospective adopters, and supervising new adoptive parents as their children settle into the family.
We give the opportunity for staff to express an interest in moving to a different team within Adopt London North as spaces in the service become available, to ensure you are provided with a broad range of opportunities to develop your knowledge and expertise.
Working Arrangements
We have a flexible hybrid working style. You will be required to work from the office several times a week and will also undertake meetings with clients in the office and in their homes, but you will have flexibility to choose whether you prefer to be home or office-based on other days. We have regular training and development days, and there are opportunities to specialise your skills through delivering training and workshops, facilitating group work, and taking part in practice development projects.
About You
To be considered for this role you will need to demonstrate (in both your application and your interview):
- You are a qualified and experienced Social Worker, registered with Social Work England.
- You have at least 2 years’ experience of working in front-line children’s social work teams, including some experience of working with children with permanency plans.
- You have an understanding of both the benefits and the challenges that different permanency arrangements, including adoption, can bring to a child.
- You are committed to providing support to families and adopted people, and have empathy for the challenges they may face.
- You have experience of undertaking complex written assessments, and making recommendations to the court and / or decision-making panels.
Our commitment to supporting the diversity of our workforce
We are committed to ensuring that our communities are represented across our workforce at all levels. We are taking concerted, meaningful and intentional action to create an inclusive culture because we believe this is at the heart of enabling diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking, to thrive in our organisation. We are aware of systemic oppression and its impact on individuals and communities in terms of unequal access to services and opportunities. As such, we are taking positive action to challenge all forms of discrimination and injustice. As part of our ‘Black Adoption Project’, we provide confidential, therapeutically supported Safer Spaces sessions on a monthly basis to Black staff.
We welcome questions and requests for discussion about the roles available. Please email Teresa Stratford, Service Manager ([email protected]) to arrange a time to speak.