ASYE Social Worker – Children’s

Directorate: Children and Families
Team: Various across the social work teams
Job Family: Supporting – CBG9
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: £34,811 – £37,562 per annum, plus MRS £1,000 per annum (£28,598 – £31,022 per annum if not registered with SWE)
Location: You will be expected to attend a CBC office location as often as needed to carry out your role- usually 2/3 times weekly and as a minimum no less than once per month.
Contract Type: Hybrid – Permanent
Closing Date: 22nd January 2026
ASYE interview and recruitment day: 13th February 2026

About the Role:

Central Bedfordshire Council are excited to offer opportunities for Newly Qualified Social Workers within our Children and Families department. At Central Bedfordshire Council, we assist children and young people to grow up safely, achieve more and be happy and healthy. We employ systemic practice and motivational interviewing and our methodologies sit within relationship-based practice. We know that the best way to protect our most vulnerable children is to value, support and retain our talented social workers and we are seeking the finest social workers of the future to join our progressive teams. In return, we offer the opportunity to develop and progress your career. We have made considerable progress in our implementation of Families First and adopt a learning culture across the organisation.

By working collaboratively with partner organisations, we are helping raise the quality of social work, and ensuring social workers have the necessary knowledge, skills and values to practice effectively. Social workers from Central Bedfordshire Council have received national awards for their outstanding practice. In 2024, CBC ASYE’s won both the Children and Adult NQSW of the year in the National Awards, and our Integrated Front Door Team won the Partnership Working Award. We have also maintained our ‘Good’ Ofsted rating in our recent Ofsted Inspection (March 2025).

Newly qualified staff have protected workloads and an individual training programme during their ASYE, as well as additional reflective supervision and the support of a mentor and independent assessor throughout your first year. We will give you plenty of support to help you develop your knowledge, relationship-based practice, and social worker appreciation.

We’ll place you in a specific host service for the duration of your ASYE. Thereafter, you can elect to move to another service if the opportunity arises. All successful candidates have a career discussions with a senior member of staff from Learning and Development or Children and Families.

We are looking for people with a social work degree at 2:1 or above / expected in Social Work or a Masters, and people with ideas and knowledge who can deliver imaginative ambitious interventions that improve outcomes for all involved. To be eligible for our ASYE programme, you must have completed your degree within the past 2 years and have achieved / be predicted a 2:1 or above.

We will be hosting an online information session to any interested candidates who want to know more about Central Bedfordshire Council and our opportunities. This will be held via MS Teams. The joining details are Meeting ID: 312 080 348 060 34, Passcode: Ph2ky9HH and dates are below:

• Friday 9th January 2026 (1pm – 2pm)
• Monday 12th January 2026 (6:30pm – 7:30pm)

Please Note: We expect a high number of applications and may close applications early in line with demand.

All applications who are successful upon initial screening will be invited to attend our ASYE assessment and recruitment day on 3rd February 2026 at Priory House in Shefford (our Primary Office location).

Our Offer

We have a number of rewards and benefits available to our staff, to view these please visit our Rewards and Benefits page

Our aspiration is to be a truly flexible employer. We welcome discussion on location, hours and working pattern as part of the application process.

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You will be expected to demonstrate how you meet the key accountabilities and competencies in this Recruitment Pack.

Our Competency Framework and Qualification Guidance are to be read in conjunction with our Recruitment Pack.

For an informal discussion about this position, please contact: Emma Mortimer at Emma.Mortimer2@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk or call 0300 300 8478.

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Safeguarding:

Central Bedfordshire Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees, volunteers and contractors to share this commitment. This post is subject to the disclosure of criminal records.

To maintain a fair and consistent approach for applicants, it is Central Bedfordshire Council’s policy to only consider applications made via our online application system and we therefore thank you for not submitting your application offline.

Our National Careers Service team offer a free monthly workshop covering CV writing and how to complete the statement sections of the Central Bedfordshire Council online application form. This MS Teams workshop is open to anyone from the UK and lasts around 1.5 hours. Please book your place here.

More information about this service can be found here: Support getting into work or learning | Central Bedfordshire Council