Job Description

Organisation

Southampton City Council

Service Area

Pathways Through Care & Resources

Job Location

Civic Centre

Work Hours

Full time 37 hours per week

Salary

57,755 - 65,222 per annum - Plus Market Supplement of 2,000 per annum.

Special Requirements

Enhanced DBS will be required

Closing Date

05/01/2026

Job Reference

16285
Job description

We are the difference for Care Leavers.

Team Manager Opportunity in Southampton.

TEAM MANAGER FOR Care Leavers Until March 2027 with opportunity for permanent post as Team Manager after.

Ofsted rating: Good for Children in Care and Care leavers with Outstanding Leadership. June 2023.



Southampton City Council, Pathways Through Care Team is a service passionate and striving to achieve the best outcomes for our children we care for and our Care Leavers. We work closely with partner agencies, building strong relationships between practitioners and their families enabling systemic and reflective work with our children.



We are currently seeking a committed and supportive person to continue to drive and develop support for our Care leavers in Southampton City Council. As Team Manager for the Care Leavers Service you will lead a dedicated team of Personal Advisors supporting young people making the transition from care to independent adulthood. This role is pivotal in ensuring that care leavers receive consistent, high-quality support to achieve positive outcomes in education, employment, health, and wellbeing. They will be part of an established permanent management team who work collectively and in unison with one another.



This will be an opportunity to help support a permanent team of personal advisors to build meaningful and influential relationships with the care leavers for. Our service offers strong and resilient practitioners alongside supportive and flexible management enabling you to make decisions, drive plans and change lives of our young people and help them to achieve in education, employment, health and wellbeing.



This is an exciting opportunity to support an embedded team to continue and build on good practice. Although this post is for cover until 31st March 2027 for Care Leavers due to current manager taking on a secondment opportunity, the Team Manager post is being recruited to permanently with another Team Manager role in Children's services being offered after this period if the Care Leaver post is then not available after this period. Which team this will be offered in will not be known until closer to 2027.

The Service

:



The Care Leaver team is part of Pathways Through Care Service where children in care and Care Leavers are supported. We share the same office space and the relationship between the two service areas is interactive and enables the journey to independence to be streamlined and young person focused. We aim to support young people from 16 to be allocated Personal Advisors and there is strong focus on joint working in the last 12 to 18 months of a young person's time in our care. There are two Care Leaver teams so this role would involve working alongside other Care Leaver managers to ensure consistency of support.



The service continues to benefit from a permanent management team who have a wide range of experience from different service areas as well as two service managers who are visible and approachable. There are 7 teams within the one service 2 teams are for young people who are care experienced, 1 team is specifically working with unaccompanied children in the UK, children in care and care leavers and three other children in care teams. There is also a Staying Connected Team which provides floating support to young people over 18 in accommodation that we are responsible for. The service prides itself on having a cohesive and friendly feel who offer support to team members.

The Role

:



The Team Manager appointed will spend their time supporting Personal advisors who are supporting Care Leavers both in preparation from 16 for leaving care, alongside the CIC teams and then case responsibility when young person turns 18 years old in supporting them up until the age of 25 years old. This exciting opportunity for a full time Team manager will allow any experienced manager or an aspiring manager to utilise their social worker skills and core values whilst they support staff to support young people in their plans for permanence and to prepare them for young adulthood.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for a social work manager who cares about delivering aspirational support to our Care leavers. Services for children in care and care leavers go way beyond statutory responsibilities, delivering care at a level where all our children and young people are the best that they can possibly be, where they are engaged in all aspects of their care and are not only cared for, but know they are cared about. Ofsted also observed: 'Practitioners are supported by energetic and responsive frontline managers who maintain clear, confident and close oversight of children's progress'.



We are looking for someone to join this team to ensure good performance and support is provided to care leavers as their Corporate Parent. The service enthusiastically engages in the corporate parenting community in delivering services which truly meet the needs of all our children in care and care leavers. Advocacy and participation are central to the service's core values. We are looking for a team manager who cares passionately about children in care and care leavers and who will continue to build a service where permanence, acceptance and lasting, trusting relationships matter.



A social work qualification and Social Work England Registration is essential for this post.

W

hat we can offer you

Salary:

The salary band for this role is 57,755 - 65,222. The

starting salary is 57,755

with annual progression through the salary bands.



Here at SCC we have a range of different benefits, a few examples can be found below.


Excellent local government pension with 16.8% employer contribution Death in service benefit of x3 salary, and optional salary sacrifice shared cost AVC (additional voluntary contribution) Generous holiday 25-31 days, based on role and service Flexible working options (role-dependent) Family-friendly policies - Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Shared/Unpaid Parental Leave, Time off for Dependents Training and development, including coaching and mentoring Health and wellbeing support - Employee Assistance Programme, Menopause Pledge, Mental Health First Aiders and access to a variety of staff networks Veteran-friendly employer with the Armed Forces Covenant Retail discounts and savings through the Southampton City Council benefits platform Discounted memberships at local sports and fitness centres Sustainable travel benefits - low emission car scheme, cycle to work, season ticket loans Employee volunteering scheme with 2 paid days leave to volunteer

F

or further information on our benefits package please visit

Employee benefits (southampton.gov.uk)

Contact details for informal discussion:

For further information and details regarding the role, please contact Nikky Brown: nikky.brown@southampton.gov.uk or Carolyn Driscoll carolyn.driscoll@southampton.gov.uk

Interview Information:

Please note that interviews are scheduled for

Monday

19

th

January 2026

Recruitment contact details:

Email: recruitment@southampton.gov.uk

Tel: 023 8083 4033

for this job


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