Qualified Children's Social Worker

We are excited to offer a Professional Retention Payment of £4,000 for those who join one of our teams in this area. You can find out further information about this payment prior to applying for the role - check vacancy documents.

Job summary

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.

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 Childrens Social Worker in our Public and Private Law and Work to First Hearing teams. If you join us, you will work alongside like-minded people in a diverse, inclusive and supportive organisation.

If you would like to know more about what it is like to work for Cafcass in these teams, why not come to our virtual recruitment event on Wednesday 03 December at 5PM- Click to Register Here.

Join us in making a difference for children and families. As a Family Court Adviser (our professional title for Children's Social Workers), you'll work within our Public and Private Law and Work to First Hearing teams on a combination of cases where either the families require the assistance to agree on the best arrangements for the welfare and safety of the child(ren) involved or the local authority has serious concerns and requests the involvement of Cafcass in the case.

Children's Social Workers key responsibilities include:

• Conducting assessments and directly engaging with children to understand and represent their views and wishes to the court.
• Using expertise in robust risk assessment and mediation will be essential as you advocate for arrangements that prioritise the best interest of the children.

Who we're looking for

• Relevant Social Work qualification is essential
• You must be registered with Social Work England (Cafcass employees are automatically reimbursed this annual cost)
• You'll have demonstrable, relevant experience of working with children and families in a qualified social work setting,
• Experience in Family Court proceedings and understanding of Private and/or Public Law would be an advantage
• Organised and resilient with ability to work independently and managing workload effectively

Location

Our teams work flexibly and remotely, so your location is not always a critical factor. While we have offices in Bristol, Swindon, Reading, and Oxford, proximity to these locations is not essential. We're happy to discuss your preferred working arrangements in more detail during the interview process.

We also meet regularly - in person, or virtually - for team meetings and group supervision to help you feel supported in your role, connect with peers and managers and feel supported and a valued member of our team,

We provide an outstanding range of practice aids, resources, equipment, and support, so that individually and collectively, we can be the voice of children and young people when the family court makes critical decisions about their futures.

Benefits

Please Note: The advertised salary reflects our 2024/25 pay award. We are awaiting confirmation of our 2025/26 when salaries will be updated to reflect this.

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, 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, including excellent holidays and a generous Local Government Pension Scheme to name just two things.

We also understand that you will want to work for an organisation that is both passionate and 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 a multitude of ways in which we do this.

Things you need to know

We also know it is important for you 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.

We are looking to move forward with this recruitment process as quickly as we can and so will review applications and be in touch as soon as we can. However, as a guide, the timetable we are hoping to work to is below.

Closing date for applications: 7 December 2025

Initial interviews completed by: Week commencing: 17 and 24 November 2025

Final interviews: Week commencing: 01 and 08 December 2025

What we've shared with you here is just a small amount of what we think you may like to know. We would also like you to be able to access the job description for this role and more about our benefits and wellbeing offer, which you can find by clicking through to our vacancy page.

We look forward to hearing from you.