Jobs in safeguarding and social care
We want to recruit qualified social workers like you for all our children’s services in Camden.
Current vacancies
- Social Workers (various teams)
- Senior Practitioners (various teams)
- Fostering social workers
See our jobs pages for more information on any of these vacancies.
Here are just some of the reasons for working for us:
- social workers salary from £28,536 up to £37,257 and for senior practitioners, from £30,594 to £39,738
- award winning work-life balance scheme for those who have passed their probationary period that demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that staff are able to achieve the right balance between their working life and the enjoyment of their family and social and leisure pursuits
- key worker housing scheme for social workers to enable them to secure good quality housing at affordable rates
- Camden is Investors in People accredited organisation and is committed to developing staff in order to achieve our aims and objectives
- local government pension scheme, which is a final salary scheme with benefits protected against inflation
- pool bike and cycle allowance schemes that help to cope with the ever-increasing traffic problems and keep Camden ‘green’
- staff benefits scheme, which gives staff access to a wide range of financial benefits, from discounted electrical goods to corporate membership rates for gyms and cheaper holidays
- welfare service which provides confidential counselling and advice on personal or work-related problems
If you'd like to talk to someone who already works for Camden about what we can offer, please telephone:
- Pauline Nwawudu on 0207 974 4131
- Olivia Kostecka on 0207 974 1059
About the Children, Schools and Families directorate
- the borough has two impressive Safeguarding and Social Care Centres based in the north and south of the borough that provide front line social work services to local families. The duty and assessment teams have seconded workers from a variety of voluntary specialist organisations, including Bengali and Somali community groups, in order to strengthen links with these communities and to improve their access to a diverse range of services
- we are exceptional in the use of our hospital-based social work teams at Great Ormond Street, University College and the Royal Free, which liaise closely with medical staff to carry out assessments on children and families in a hospital setting. In conjunction with the Department for Education and Skills, we are currently developing the role that these teams will have within the new foundation hospitals
- the disabled children’s team specialises in assessing the needs of disabled children and devising packages of care to support the children and their parents and carers. A major innovation by this team has been the development of direct payments to parents and carers. Services for disabled children are being reviewed across the Council and Camden Primary Care Trust and there will be a full multi-disciplinary service across the sector for these children
- the fostering and kinship service promotes the use of family and friends’ placements and works with local community groups to recruit new careers in the area so that we can provide a range of placements that are suited to the individual needs of children. The fostering team also takes the lead in implementing the national standards of care and in developing work around private fostering
- the new adoption legislation is currently being implemented by the permanency team. The team also offers a high-quality post-adoption service, providing excellent support for people accessing details of their life in care
- the resource team is a multi-agency team consisting of social workers and health and education professionals. The team helps other teams to develop packages of care for children and monitors the effectiveness of these resources. The team ensures that the right support is given to families to prevent children from entering public care
- the leaving care team works with young care leavers to enable them to move on to independence in a way that enhances their life chances. The team has successfully implemented the leaving care legislation, providing trained personal advisers and working with other departments and voluntary groups around education, housing and training opportunities for care leavers
- the youth offending team works in partnership with young people to divert them from offending behaviour and to help them address the issues that may lead them to commit crime. It is a multidisciplinary team, drawing on links with other agencies to enhance service provision and to improve outcomes for young people who are at risk of becoming involved in antisocial and criminal behaviour
- our multi-agency liaison team consists of psychiatrists, therapists, psychologists and specialist social workers and works in partnership with Camden Primary Care Trust to deliver services for children with mental health problems and their parents and carers. This multidisciplinary team provides assessment and support services for the children and their families, and gives advice to social workers and other professionals working with children
- the quality assurance unit provides advice and guidance to social workers on all aspects of the division’s work and carries out regular audits to monitor standards of practice. It has a key role in overseeing both the child protection and looked after children systems and is responsible for implementing the pan-London child protection procedures. Members of the unit include child protection officers and independent reviewing officers who act as specialist consultants to social workers. The unit organized a multi-faith conference on safeguarding children in the community that successfully addressed misconceptions around cultural attitudes to child protection
- as part of its service development role, the unit has developed a very successful family group conference service, which gives families an opportunity to be closely involved in making plans for their children. The service has significantly improved partnership-working with parents, which has led to an improvement in outcomes for children. The service has now been extended to families involved with Sure Start and the Restorative Justice Service
- the unit’s participation officer works with children, parents and carers to ensure that they are consulted and involved in all aspects of service planning and delivery. This has been achieved through the very successful ‘total respect’ training programme, which is planned and delivered jointly by social workers and care leavers, and a very successful young people’s consultation forum
- the purpose-built Vadnie Bish House provides direct services to families in a beautifully designed, child-friendly environment, giving a wide range of support services to the local community, including parenting groups, a nursery, a contact centre, a drop-in centre for young people and the supported child minding service. The centre is being developed as a children’s centre to serve the wider community
- we are developing a specialist Looked after Children’s service and specialist teams to work in schools and other localities and have extra funding to do this