Child Protection Expert | 10033 | Permanent Contract | 37 hours per week | £50,166 to £54,277 per annum | Grade L | County Hall

Hi, I am Jenifer Dewar, Assistant Director for Family Help at Norfolk County Council. Norfolk are a ‘Good’ authority with ‘exceptional leadership’. We are proud of our Social Work Teams and value all our practitioners. 

Family Help consists of multi-disciplinary teams working collaboratively to meet the needs of children, and in a culture that prioritises relationships, direct work and extended family networking to affect sustainable change. Our family help teams have 22 practitioners, of which seven or eight are social workers. The rest of the team is made up of family support workers, specialist practitioners, assistant managers and team managers. Cases are managed by the whole prevention and protection teams and families receive targeted interventions at a very early stage, improving outcomes for our Children and Families. We have received amazing benefits from this way of working for our Social Workers too including the reduction in intervention times and paperwork.

The Expert role is part of the Management Team. This is a focused role on leading an area of practice specific to a particular specialism – Child Protection. 

In this role, you will have limited line management duties, but supervision and oversight of case work. Ensuring quality and timeliness is a key part of the Expert’s duties. You will be providing support, guidance, advice and direction/development as part of the management team.

As a Child Protection Expert, you will be the Lead Practitioner for Child Protection matters, chairing strategy discussions for the patch teams, building strong working relationships with safeguarding leads from across the partnership and with the Court Proceedings expert.  

You will focus on developing effective Child Protection trajectory planning, including developing staff expertise in successful de-escalation of risk, particularly for newly qualified Social Workers.

You will be joining an authority who cares about your wellbeing, who are passionate about flexible working and who develop practitioners, so everyone feels valued and part our Norfolk County Council family. 

We particularly encourage applications from underrepresented groups at Norfolk County Council including Black and Global Majority practitioners, and we are committed to equality and diversity within our Family Help teams.

Before you apply, we recommend reading the full Job Description and Person Specification to help you demonstrate you meet the criteria.

For an informal discussion about this role, please contact Michelle Dunsire in the first instance- michelle.dunsire@norfolk.gov.uk 

These are some benefits you can enjoy by working for Norfolk County Council:

• Competitive salary
• Generous holiday entitlement 
• Health and Wellbeing services including fast-track physiotherapy and a free counselling service
• Flexible working opportunities including flexi-time, part time, remote and hybrid working – dependant on your job role and business need. 
• Financial benefits such as:
  • ‘Norfolk Rewards’ our employee discounts programme which helps you save money on almost anything, from everyday groceries and clothes, to holidays, new technology, gym membership, trips to the cinema and days out.   
  • A Blue Light card for Fire Service and Social Care Workers
  • Relocation expenses (where applicable)
  • An advance of your expenses if you travel for work
  • Local Government Pension Scheme with generous employer contribution, life assurance, death in service payments and dependants’ pensions.

  • Tax efficient ways of getting extra pension and new bikes

  • Access to our tax efficient car lease scheme for greener travel enabling you to lease a brand new, ultra-low emission vehicle (subject to eligibility)

  • A payment if you refer someone you know to a hard to fill job

You can also find information on our Terms and Conditions here.

Already a Norfolk County Council employee? See and apply for internal and external vacancies in myOracle using your @norfolk.gov.uk or @nccal.ac.uk email.

We would like to make you aware that priority consideration for this post may be given to current employees who are at risk due to restructure within the organisation or are in a redeployment position.  

Redeployment closing date: 15 March 2026 at 23:55

All other applicants closing date: 23 March 2026 at 23:55

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