Are you an experienced Social Worker with a strong history of building excellent relationships with children and families? Do you work with the child’s voice at the centre of everything you do?
If so, this could be the perfect next step in your career!
We’re looking for an Independent Chair to join our Children’s Quality Assurance and Practice Improvement service on a 12 month fixed term contract or secondment. This is a senior position on the same scale as a Team Manager and focuses on ensuring that children in our care receive high‑quality, timely and meaningful planning that reflects their needs, wishes and aspirations. If you are applying for this role as a secondment, please ensure that you have spoken to your line manager before applying, to confirm that you can be released from your substantive post.
You will work primarily as an Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO), chairing statutory Child in Care Reviews and ensuring that every child’s plan is purposeful, ambitious and free from drift or delay. You’ll also have opportunities to chair multi‑agency Child Protection Conferences, ensuring that children’s experiences and voices are clearly evidenced and central to decision‑making.
You’ll work across the county with offices based in each area to support collaborative working. Your work-base is negotiable to support with mileage calculations.
If this sounds like a role that suits your skill set, we would love to hear from you! For an informal discussion about the role please contact Andie Markham, Service Manager – Independent Reviewing Officers, at Andrea.Markham@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or on 07789923711.
Interviews will be held in person on 16th and/or 17th April.
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
What will you be doing?
As an Independent Chair you will be:
- Building direct, meaningful relationships with children and young people, ensuring their views shape their plans.
- Chairing statutory Child in Care Reviews and driving high‑quality, SMART, child‑focused planning.
- Monitoring progress between reviews and escalating concerns where necessary to senior managers.
- Working with a diverse caseload, including:
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- Babies subject to care proceedings
- Young adults preparing to leave care
- Children with disabilities
- Unaccompanied asylum‑seeking young people
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- Chairing Child Protection Conferences (where required), ensuring multi‑agency collaboration and clear analysis of harm and risk.
- Championing the child’s perspective at every stage
We are committed to supporting your professional growth. You will receive regular formal and informal supervision (Our Conversations), an annual appraisal (Our Ratings), access to a wide range of training opportunities, and the chance to participate in monthly practice meetings designed to promote learning, reflection and development.
About you
To be successful in this role you must :
- Be a qualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration
- Have considerable post-qualifying social work experience with children
- Be able to work from a range of locations and travel independently within and beyond the county
We are looking for an experienced, confident, reflective and dynamic practitioner who is passionate about making a meaningful difference for children. You will be naturally curious, able to notice the details that others may overlook, and committed to building strong, trusting relationships with children and young people. Seeing the world from their perspective should be central to your practice.
You will bring sensitivity and professionalism to situations where there may be tension or differing views within the network around a child. Your ability to maintain focus on the child’s need for love, safety and permanence will be essential in guiding and influencing multi‑agency partners.
Strong organisational and time‑management skills are vital, as you will be responsible for managing your own workload. You will also need excellent communication skills and the flexibility to meet with children, carers and families outside of standard working hours when required.
For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification.
Our benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…
- A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
- Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
- Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
- Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
- Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
- Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
- Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
- Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
- An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes
