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 and young people every year ensuring their needs, wishes and feelings are heard. In short, our role is to be their voice.

After Ofsted Inspectors spoke to over 300 staff earlier this year, they shared some amazing quotes - visit What colleagues said about working with us | Cafcass to find out more and details of our event where you can hear from some of our social workers and managers.

While we are proud that Ofsted judged us to be ‘outstanding’ when they inspected us in early 2024, we haven’t come this far only to come this far. This outcome has energised us to just keep getting better at what we do for children and families.

If our purpose resonates with you, we are recruiting for the role of Family Court Adviser (Social Worker).

Whilst this role is part of a team based from our office in Maidstone our teams work flexibly and remotely, your proximity to the office doesn’t always have to be a critical consideration.

Let us tell you a bit more about the role…

Our Public Law teams are involved with cases where the local authority has serious concerns about the safety or welfare of a child, and the court requests for Cafcass to become involved in the case. The Cafcass Social Worker, often referred to as Children’s Guardians, is typically involved with the child across an extended period carrying out relevant assessments to understand their needs, wants and feelings, and effectively communicate this to the court through a combination of written reports and giving evidence.

The above is just a flavour of what the role entails and if you’re thinking of applying, we encourage you to read the full job description (which you can access when you click through) to gain a better understanding.

… and what we’re looking for.

Being a Family Court Adviser is very rewarding – but it’s not for everyone. You must be a Social Work England registered social worker who’s organised, resilient and able to work independently. Confident in your abilities, you’ll have demonstrable experience of working with children and families over a sustained period as a Social Worker, potentially supplemented from relevant experience from earlier in your career also.

You can find out more about the above - and much more - before you apply and we also recommend you read the job description.

Should you join us, 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) and have 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.

We also know that to join us you want to be rewarded in a variety of ways, including quality time away from work to spend time with those important to you and support to manage your financial present and future, whilst also being trusted to manage your work/life balance. We have an extensive package of benefits that you can find out more about when you click through.

We also understand you will want to work for an organisation committed to supporting your wellbeing. As you will find out when you visit our vacancy page, the four dedicated, additional days per year when colleagues are encouraged to spend time focusing on their health and wellbeing is just one of the many ways in which we do this.

We know it is important for everyone to work in a diverse, inclusive organisation that is a safe space for colleagues with shared aspects of identity and lived experience. Given we work with children and families from all backgrounds, we especially welcome applications from people from diverse backgrounds as this helps ensure our workforce reflects the diversity of the children and families we work with and provide a service that reflects their uniqueness.

Ready to find out more?

What we’ve shared with you here is just a fraction of what we think you may like to know and might help you decide to apply. We would also like you to be able to access the job description for this role and also find out about the timelines we are working towards, all of which you can find by clicking through to our vacancy page.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: £43,550.00-£48,332.00 per year

Additional pay:

Signing bonus

Benefits:

Additional leave
Bereavement leave
Childcare
Company pension
Cycle to work scheme
Employee discount
Flexitime
Free flu jabs
Health & wellbeing programme
Private medical insurance
Referral programme
Sick pay
Work from home

Schedule:

Monday to Friday
No weekends

Experience:

social work: 3 years (required)

Licence/Certification:

Social Work England (required)

Work authorisation:

United Kingdom (required)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Maidstone, ME15 6LU

Reference ID: NTX1051550

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