Job Description

'Social workers love working in East Sussex because they feel valued and supported.' - Ofsted Report 2024


We are looking for either a Social Worker or Senior Social worker to j oin our dynamic Children's Disability Service for a 12 month secondment. This is an exciting opportunity to develop your assessment, planning and intervention skills in working with disabled children and their families. We're looking for somebody who is passionate about making a difference and able to use creative and personalised strengths-based approaches to achieve positive outcomes for disabled children and their families. You will be able to work in partnership with disabled children and their families as well as colleagues in Children's and Adult's Services, Education, Health and the Voluntary & Community sector.


The vacancy is within our Family Support Team, you will be able to play a key role in working closely with families to empower them to develop bespoke care plans. We are a very friendly, supportive and stable team with longstanding members who are very experienced in their roles. This could be the perfect opportunity to develop your own experience of different types of work such as; working alongside continuing care, working to create truly integrated education, health and care plans, undertaking mental capacity assessments and understanding more about the court of protection deprivation of liberties processes, or working with children and their families after diagnoses and supporting them to come to terms with change and loss of their child's health or behavioural needs. You will learn about how we assess need in a fair and transparent way.


You will be working with families who want to work closely with you and alongside experienced networks who want to affect positive change for disabled children and their families. Your role will include assessment, planning and interventions with children in need, children we care for, and children in need of protection, as well as looking ahead to preparation for adulthood and ensuring the child's voice in this. An increasing area of our work is in meeting children with needs across neuro-diversity & special educational needs and CDS offers these further opportunities whilst also retaining a real focus on safeguarding. There is increasing joint work across CDS & mainstream Locality and we are keen to progress this further by offering this sort of secondment opportunity.


We have high aspirations for children in our care and we want to deliver an ambitious and creative service which meets the complex needs of our children. In this role we provide regular individual and group supervision; access to excellent learning and development provisions, including specifically related training courses such as keeping safe, positive behaviour support and Makaton.


We all know that writing job applications can be challenging and time consuming, so we have streamlined the process as much as possible. Click the apply now button to upload your CV and a brief cover letter. The main areas we want you to tell us about are:


Your work with children and young people How you communicate with others Your application or research in theory in practice
Brief and to the point and with some examples is the way to go!


At Interview the main areas we'd like you to tell us about include:


Your work with children and young people How you communicate with others Your application of research or theory in practice Your strong social work leadership skills

(please note this is an opportunity to transfer to CDS in your current role as SW or SSW, unfortunately you will not be able to apply for a SSW role if you are currently a SW)

Any secondment must be discussed and agreed with your current line manager before applying.

Please see & Person Specifications below:


Social Worker JD Senior Social Worker JD
Interviews will take place face to face at either St Marys House or County Hall, Lewes, within two weeks of closing date.


For an informal discussion please contact - Claire Collerson - Claire.collerson@Eastsussex.gov.uk


We offer a diverse range of benefits to help and support you during your employment. More information can be found on our benefits page.


Our unparalleled social work education team are dedicated to supporting our social workers grow and develop within and beyond their roles.


Salary: 42,752 - 53,915 (Grade 11-12)

Please note that these salaries include a market supplement which has been agreed to the end of June 2026 - you can view the basic salary on our Salaries scales page

We offer a diverse range of benefits to help and support you during your employment. More information can be found on our benefits page.


For more information about Children's Social work in East Sussex please visit www.eastsussex.gov.uk/socialwork or for an informal discussion about recruitment or if you'd like a chat with a particular service practice manager please contact Claire Collerson - Claire.collerson@Eastsussex.gov.uk