Social Worker Opportunities

Being a social worker in Children’s Social Care

Our social workers choose to stay for a long time. They provide good-quality social work and we provide on-going training. Only rarely do we have to use agency workers - we’d rather spend the money on our staff.

If you are a social worker student we have a thriving social worker placement scheme and many of our students become permanent members of our teams after qualification. Find out more about our student social worker practice placement scheme

Being a social worker at Bracknell Forest

Here’s what Social Workers have to say about their experience of working at Bracknell Forest:

“Bracknell Forest is forward-looking and offers excellent training and is very supportive around training.”

“I am able to express my views and opinions, and am allowed to think and learn and to promote good social work with children and families.”

“I think as we are a small local authority there is better communication between different professional disciplines as we get to know individual workers. As a worker I feel confident there are good Child Protection procedures which are well published.”

“I am proud to work in Bracknell as a children's social worker”.

Our Culture

A safe place to practice social work because

You get the level of support that you need
Your professional opinion is valued
A genuine open door policy (senior managers sit next to the teams)

To seek ways to improve and enhance practice through

a practitioner support group
reflective learning
supportive mentors
further support offered under the Early Professional Development Scheme
workers can have mixed case-loads to develop their skills

Focus on outcomes – it allows for creative decision making

Clear and straightforward policies and procedures

Our Progress – we have

Introduced new ways of working in a planned and steady way e.g. Introduced “Signs of Safety” as part of our commitment to better engage with families, Piloted the Newly Qualified Social Work Scheme and have a strong early intervention programme through multi-agency partnership working.
Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is well-embedded
Maintained supervision every three weeks
Remained a specialist social work service, embedded into an inter-agency network
Maintained low staff turnover
Developed a “Grow Our Own” scheme with plenty of internal promotion

Our Challenges

Further developing multi-agency working
Making ICS fit for purpose – the working group to address this has made progress, but there is more to do
Developing more local services for all specialist needs
Developing managers for the future
Further improving outcomes for all children we work with
Rising to the challenge of increased expectations and government requirements within limited budgets

If you are a qualified social worker, or are about to become qualified, why not give us a ring to see what vacancies we have and to find out more.

Informal enquiries to:

Sheila McKeand, Head of Service for Looked After Children
Tel: 01344 351532

Simon McKenzie, Head of Learning Difficulties and Disability
Tel: 01344 353132

Mairead Panetta, Head of Safeguarding
Tel: 01344 351523