Leaving Care Advanced Practitioner

·         Salary: £48,226 - £51,356 per annum

·         Hours per week: 37

·         Contract Type: Fixed Term for 12 months

·         Closing Date: 12/04/2026

·         This post is open to job share.

We are currently recruiting for an Advanced Practitioner for our Leaving Care team in Cheltenham.

If you are an internal candidate, this role can be taken as a secondment upon agreement with your manager.

About us

For all your hard work. You will receive the following;

• between £48,226 - £51,356 per annum
• flexible and agile working opportunities
• 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service
• an option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year
• family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
• supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone.
• an in-house Occupational Health service
• employee discount scheme
• cycle to Work scheme
• links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
• career development and qualification opportunities
• access to our Social Work Academy
• paid SWE registration renewal

Right child, right support, right time, every time

In our recent inspection in June 2025, our Children’s Services have been officially judged as ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ elements. Ofsted also said ‘Leaders have set out a clear vision for delivering success for children, by modelling values and creating a culture where the workforce, children and families feel valued and heard; risk is managed confidently with bottom lines clearly set out.’

This marks an important step in our journey to improve outcomes for our children and young people, and we remain focused on our mission: to continue building on this success and ensure that every child and young person in our county has the opportunity to thrive.

Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Social Work Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award-winning workforce.

We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to be part of an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.

Our team structures are designed to ensure there is the right level of support available to staff and that caseloads are kept at a manageable level with a Team Manager, Advanced Practitioner, 4 Social Workers and an NQSW making up each team’s full complement of staff. We need resilient, driven individuals who will play their part in making our vision for Children’s Services a success. You will be joining an authority with a strong set of values that underpin the work we do: Accountability, Empowerment, Excellence, Integrity and Respect.

About you

As an Advanced Practitioner, you will be instrumental in delivering a first-class service which will deliver the best outcomes for the children and young people of Gloucestershire. You will be a resilient, driven individual who can play your part in making our vision for children’s services a reality. Taking on a protected case load, you will work to create the best outcomes for children and young people with complex and challenging needs, risks and circumstances.

You will take a lead in promoting and supporting quality control and improvement activities within the team and across the service and support performance activities within the team. Your role will also include oversight for the practice and development of Trainee Social Workers on placement and NQSW within the team.

As well as your experience as a frontline social worker, there are some things we require of you to be successfully appointed to this post:

• Social Work England registration
• a recognised qualification in Social Work
• to have passed your Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) (if you qualified after 2012)
• a full driving licence and willingness to drive
• DBS clearance (Enhanced Adults and Children’s)

We reserve the right to close an advertisement earlier than the stated closing date if we receive a suitable number of applications or fill the vacancy/vacancies.

The council will consider sponsorship for this role, in line with Home Office regulations and subject to satisfactory pre-employment checks.

Under the terms of our Safer Recruitment Policy, if you are invited to interview, we will take up safeguarding references prior to your interview to understand your suitability to work with vulnerable children. These references will then be discussed in your interview. Please give details of at least two referees, one of whom must be your present and/or last employer and the other from a previous employer(s). These will need to cover the last three years of employment/education. In the case of applicants leaving full time education or not having worked since doing so, the Head of School, College or University should be one of the named referees. We do not accept references from friends or family members or workplace colleagues (who are not more senior). To ensure we process your application in a speedy and efficient way, we will contact your referees by DocuSign. Where appropriate, please inform them of your application.

For more information about the job, view links, download attachments and apply please click on the Apply Now button.