Team Manager - Fostering, Recruitment and Assessment Team (FRAT)

Town Hall
160 Whitechapel Road
LONDON
E1 1BJ

Role: Team Manager - Fostering, Recruitment and Assessment Team (FRAT)

Salary: Grade L - £56,733 - £59,772 plus retention allowance of £4,971 per annum and zones 2&3 travel card

Contract: Permanent

Team Manager - Fostering, Recruitment & Assessment Team (FRAT)

Are you an experienced and passionate social worker ready to take on a leadership role? We are looking for a dedicated individual to join our Fostering, Recruitment & Assessment Team (FRAT) as a Team Manager on a permanent basis.

About the Role

This is an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated social worker at Advanced Practitioner or Team Manager level, with at least three years of experience in Kinship. You'll play a key role in ensuring children can live safely within their family networks by leading the assessment and support of kinship carers.

We need a strong leader who:

• Has experience in kinship carer assessments and understands what makes a high-quality assessment that stands up to scrutiny in court and other settings.
• Has a solid grasp of Fostering and Placement Regulations and the complexities of kinship care.
• Can support and motivate social workers to deliver excellent assessments, contributing and supporting care planning.
• Brings creativity and drive to improve outcomes for children through kinship arrangements.

Why Join Us?

Kinship care is gaining national recognition as a vital way to keep children connected to their families. Tower Hamlets is committed to enhancing support for kinship families by ensuring high-quality assessments and care planning. In this role, you will:

• Lead the assessment of prospective kinship carers and develop post-approval support.
• Work closely with internal teams, external partners, and stakeholders to strengthen our kinship support framework.
• Contribute to innovative pilot projects, shaping the future of kinship assessment and support.

If you have the expertise, leadership skills, and passion to make a lasting impact on children's lives, we'd love to hear from you!

Apply now and help shape the future of kinship care.

Key Requirements:

• Proven experience in Kinship with a commitment to tackling disproportionality and building upon assessment skills and quality of reports for court and panel and building on support offered to Kinship families.
• Strong knowledge of Child First with a commitment to ensuring the best standards of practice for the children and the families that we work with.
• Knowledge and experience of auditing processes with evidence of improving practice from this process.
• Ability to manage relationships with internal and external partners.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage with children, professionals, and service providers.
• Strong organisational and time-management skills with the ability to manage competing priorities.
• Knowledge of relevant legislation is desirable.
• Competent in using IT systems and managing database and Excel.

Application Process:

To apply for this exciting opportunity, please complete the application by 21st April 2025, outlining your relevant experience and why you are interested in the role.

Interviews will take place on 28 th or 29 th April 2025, please hold these dates.

Tower Hamlets vision for our borough is that: people are aspirational, independent and have equal access to opportunities; we are a borough that our residents are proud of and love to live in; and we are a dynamic, outcomes-based council using digital innovation and partnership working to respond to the changing needs of our borough. We want people who aspire to our TOWER values: Together; Open; Willing; Excellent; Respect.

Tower Hamlets has a zero-tolerance approach to, and works to eradicate, all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marital status, status as a civil partner, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy and maternity and looks to employ a diverse workforce representative of those groups. We recognise that people can also be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class.

We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means applicants who declare a disability and meet the essential criteria for the post are guaranteed an interview. Care experience has also been adopted by the Council as an additional protected characteristic.

We welcome applicants interested in flexible working arrangements and also applicants who live in the borough.