Job Description

Advanced Social Worker – Child Protection Team

Bristol City Council is seeking a highly skilled practitioner to join its frontline service, working with children and families where robust safeguarding intervention is required to ensure children remain safe and achieve positive outcomes.

This is an excellent opportunity for an accomplished social worker who enjoys managing complex cases, supporting colleagues, and driving high-quality practice. Offering a competitive rate of £42 per hour, this role provides the chance to work within a progressive authority that values professional expertise and relationship-based social work.

Bristol City Council is committed to delivering outstanding services for children and families through strong partnerships, effective safeguarding practice, and a child-centred approach. The authority continues to invest in its workforce, ensuring practitioners have access to regular supervision, learning opportunities, and supportive management.

The Child Protection Team works with children and families where significant concerns have been identified, managing Child Protection Plans, Public Law Outline processes, and pre-proceedings work. As an Advanced Social Worker, you will play a key role in delivering high-quality interventions while providing guidance and support to colleagues across the team.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a service that values professional judgement, reflective practice, and collaborative working to achieve the best possible outcomes for vulnerable children and young people.

Key responsibilities include managing a complex caseload of children subject to Child Protection Plans and statutory intervention, undertaking comprehensive assessments, risk analysis, and safety planning, leading Child Protection and Child in Need planning processes, completing Section 47 investigations and contributing to strategy discussions, progressing Public Law Outline and pre-proceedings work where required, undertaking direct work with children, young people, and families to promote positive change, preparing high-quality assessments, reports, and court documentation, attending Child Protection Conferences, Core Groups, Legal Planning Meetings, and court hearings, providing mentoring, guidance, and informal support to less experienced social workers, working collaboratively with education, health, police, legal services, and partner agencies, and maintaining accurate and timely case recording in accordance with statutory requirements.

Candidate requirements include being a qualified social worker with a recognized Social Work qualification, registered with Social Work England, having significant experience within Child Protection, Safeguarding, or Locality Services, a strong understanding of safeguarding legislation, statutory guidance, and court processes, experience managing complex and high-risk cases, the ability to mentor and support colleagues within a team environment, excellent assessment, analytical, and report-writing skills, and strong communication and relationship-building abilities.

Why work with us? Benefits include a £42 per hour competitive locum rate, 1 day per week working from home, opportunity to work within a well-established Child Protection Team, a supportive and experienced management team, regular supervision and reflective practice, opportunity to influence practice and support team development, dedicated consultant support throughout your assignment, access to a wide range of future local authority opportunities, a generous referral bonus scheme, and the opportunity to make a lasting difference to children and families facing significant challenges.

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