Team Manager Fostering Support

Your role will be to lead one of our two Fostering Support Teams for general (recruited) foster carers, supervising six Supervising Social Worker and an Advanced Practitioner. You will also be the Project Manager for our thriving Mockingbird Family Model. We are soon launching our fourth Mockingbird constellation.

Your focus will be on safeguarding and stability for children, whilst ensuring practice is regulatory compliant. You will be a child focussed manager with a focus on improving experiences and outcomes for children and young people. You will be a team player and innovative problem solver, able to work using initiative and have strong interpersonal skills for use with our foster carers, partner agencies, social workers and local communities.

You will have experience of working with foster carers or with children who are looked after. You will be a passionate and motivated manager who appreciates the importance of supporting some of our most vulnerable children to be cared for within fostering families.

You will have excellent management and leadership skills. You will be able to work using initiative and have strong interpersonal skills to not only engage current and potential carers, but to build robust relationships with colleagues. You will be a team player and be able to see the strengths in all you encounter with a keen commitment to problem solve innovatively.

Wigan Council has been voted 'Overall Council of the Year' at the APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) Awards. We are signed up to the Greater Manchester Continuous Service Commitment ensuring that your service will be continuous or 'unbroken' between the supporting organisations.

We are making great strides here in Wigan to make our fostering service even better. We have six fostering team in Wigan, providing a breadth of experience and opportunity across different specialisms. Our fostering leadership team is strong and experienced providing great peer support and challenge. We have lots to celebrate and we want to further develop a consistent trauma informed, therapeutic approach in all our carers. Have a look at what one of our foster carers has to say in our short film and listen to Supported through the Storm poem, inspired by our Million Voices group. See links below.

Wigan is a great place to work, and as a Local Authority, we truly value and recognise our staff as its greatest asset. We are embedding the Family Safeguarding Approach in our Children's Services. We are ambitious about our offer to Wigan's children and young people and our shared goal is to ensure that young people have accommodation options that prepare them for adulthood. Through our "BeWigan" behaviours, Be Courageous, Be Accountable and Be Positive, we actively encourage innovation, strive to deliver outstanding services and celebrate our successes.