About us

We are recruiting for suitably experienced Personal Advisor to join our Children in Care & Care Leavers Service.

A bit about us…

We are within easy commutable distance of Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside regions. In addition, we offer flexible working – including a blend of working from home/remotely

We have a strong vision for social work and personal advisor practice in Warrington and have established a new approach to social work. We have embedded a relationship-based practice model that has systemic practice at its core.

We have three Children in Care teams, and a Care Experienced Team for our Care Leavers 

Each team has a Team Manager who is eager to support and develop all social workers alongside the Senior Practitioner. Our teams support children and young people who are subject to care orders and for whom we share PR who live within foster placements, residential care and also with members of their extended family. Warrington Borough Council is committed to supporting our Care Leavers and have a robust and a highly regarded Local Offer available to our young people. We recognise that the role can be challenging and we have a range of exciting and impactful developments in Warrington that our social workers can utilise in supporting families, including:

• No Wrong Door –a multi-agency hub where young people at risk of going into care get targeted support to cope with the multiple issues they face; this includes our own Internal Accommodation ‘The Lighthouse’ from aged 8 years, for Outreach and from aged 12 years for Emergency accommodation whilst we work with families for children at risk of entering care and Supported Accommodation placements with wrap around Outreach support for 16-18 year old.
• Systemic Hub– consisting of Systemic Family Practitioners who are assigned to each team to provide therapeutic support and intervention and provide guidance to our social workers and personal advisors regarding systemic approaches to direct work and interventions.
• Family Time Service(to assist in arranging and supervising the time that our children in care spend with their families).
• Restore - a service designed to work with Mothers who are pregnant and have children previously moved, with the aim of reducing repeat removals.
• Family Group Conference Co-ordinators and Lifelong Links.
• Business Support– the team are able to assist with taking minutes of meetings, scanning documents onto the system and other administrative tasks.
• Magic Notes – AI to record meetings to ease the burden of recording onto the children’s files in a timely way.

In Warrington we want all children and families to benefit from high quality and purposeful relationships with professionals. We believe this will help create the best opportunities for people to change and reach their full potential. We also believe one of the most effective ways to improve the outcomes for children and families is through providing our social workers with the best conditions in which they can thrive.

Here in Warrington we are proud to be graded Good overall and Outstanding in two areas – Children in Care and Leadership in our 2024 Ofsted inspection:

Overall judgement for Care Leavers:

• The experiences and progress of care leavers were rated ‘Good’.

Key strengths:

• Care leavers are mostly well supported by a highly committed and enthusiastic workforce.
• The majority of young people live in suitable accommodation and report that they feel safe.
• Strong relationships exist between young people and staff.
• Leaders have good oversight of practice and use this to drive improvements.

The role

We are seeking a suitably experienced, dedicated and passionate personal advisor to work with and support our Children in Care from the age of 16, alongside the allocated social worker and once they turn 18 years old, to act as their Personal Advisor providing support, advice and guidance through to the age of 25 years, should they opt in to continue with the support at the age of 21 years. This is an 18.5 hours post, working Wednesday - Friday

What's needed?

Ideally, you will have some experience of working with young people aged 16+, preferably in the role of a personal advisor. Alternatively, a similar role in another setting, such as residential care would also be considered.

Benefits

As well as a competitive salary, working for us means you get:

• 26 days annual holiday - raising to 31 after 5 years of service (pro-rata)
• Access to our attractive and competitive benefits package
• Access to our Health & Wellbeing Programme

Key Dates & Further Information

The ability to converse at ease with customers and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post.

DBS clearance is required.

If you are applying for the job internally, please ensure that you apply via the Careers Page on SAP, however if you are applying for an additional job you would need to apply externally.

In accordance with Home Office guidance, successful candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK before commencement of employment. Sponsorship is not available for this role; therefore, you must have the right to work in the UK to be eligible for appointment.

Warrington Borough Council is a Disability Confident employer