Fostering Practice Manager (19910)

An exciting opportunity has become available for a Fostering Practice Manager to work within Barnardo's Cymru Fostering Service. The Fostering Practice Manager post will be responsible for a Pan-Wales Service, with hybrid working you will have the flexibility to organise work priorities with work/life balance as we pride ourselves on providing all workers with a friendly, safe, and supportive environment to work in. It is important to highlight that although this is a Pan-Wales service there will be no expectation on the candidate to travel on a weekly basis. The Fostering Practice Manager will work collaboratively with other professionals and foster parents across Wales to ensure we are meeting the sufficiency needs of local authorities, whilst providing a high-quality service to all our foster parents. To be successful in the role you will require strong leadership skills and relevant experience of working with foster parents, children and young people. You will oversee the day to day operations of the service from supporting a team of supervising social workers to ensuring effective service delivery from the point of initial contact through to assessment and placements of children/young people. You will be able to demonstrate that you can think creatively in delivering high quality support to foster parents and have a significant level of knowledge and experience within the fostering sector. This role will include work allocation, performance monitoring, dealing with staffing issues and the training/development of the team and foster parents. The right candidate will have responsibility for the team development plan to meet objectives and ensure performance targets are achieved in terms of the recruitment/approvals of foster parents, and the placements of children and young people. It will be important for the candidate to have an innovative approach to ensure growth is achieved across the service.

It will be important that you have the desire to want to make a personal contribution to improving our service. The role requires someone with passion and drive to improve the outcomes and lived experience of our children and to ensure the right support for our staff/foster parents. You will need to demonstrate significant post-qualifying experience of fostering social care practice, experience of working with children, young people, and foster parents, be familiar with child protection systems and processes and working with children who are looked after. You should also be able to demonstrate the ability to manage a team and ensure high standards of performance are practiced and maintained. You must have a Social Worker qualification and be registered with Social Care Wales, and the ability to travel across Wales when required is essential. As part of our Active Offer we would encourage applications from Welsh speakers.

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.

Workplace Offer: What it means for you The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• 26 days annual leave plus bank holidays, increasing after 5 years service
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer