Looking for your next role in children's social care?
Then join us
We’ve got an ambitious road ahead, and we need the right talent to help us.
Hear from Kevin Gordon, our Director
Oxfordshire County Council is an exciting place to be a social worker.
Our experienced management team has everything in place to continue delivering a highly regarded service for users and the support you need to help you feel valued and grow as a professional.
Transcript
My name is Kevin Gordon, I’m the corporate director of children’s services here in Oxfordshire.
I’m very fortunate that I have one of the best jobs in the council because I get to see staff from across children’s services and the wider partnership working every day with our children and with our families.
I like to see change for families, but I also like to see change in people.
What I’ve seen is an increased confidence, an increased sense of passion for social work in Oxfordshire.
Much of that is down to our family safeguarding model and the resources and investment that we’ve been able to provide to support social workers to do their job.
We have excellent managers, supportive managers and supportive leaders who go the extra mile to make sure that staff do get the emotional support and the financial support needed in order that they can be the very best social worker that they can be.
Some of the most exciting stuff that we’ve done over the last two years is to grow some new service areas, so we’re growing our own help services, we’re also growing our targeted youth support services which will provide some much needed additional support for adolescents.
The service works very closely with colleagues within our youth justice and criminal exploitation teams, and I think we’ve got one of the best youth offers.
We have a very vibrant voluntary sector here within Oxfordshire, it’s one of our features and that’s part of having a community that gets it, that wants to help.
Oxfordshire is that place where you can not only start your career, but you can progress and we believe the steps that we’ve got in place over a gradual period will provide that support that you need at those key periods of your future career progression.
We make a difference
Our innovative, multi agency approach is centred on working with families to find solutions.
We’ve created 17 locality based multi-disciplinary teams across the county as part of our family solutions plus model.
We’re now looking for new, experienced colleagues who can help deliver a better future for children in the county.
Featured vacancies
Become the best
As a practiced professional, you’ll know and understand our statutory safeguarding, assessment and reporting responsibilities – but we’re committed to being so much more.
Our bespoke training, development and support plans are helping us become one of the best options for social workers in the country.
Love what you do, with our support
A welcome and loyalty bonus of £3,500
Relocation expenses of up to £8,000
A good OFSTED rating
Regular training and progression opportunities
A flexible, agile organisation
A generous local government pension scheme
30 days annual leave plus bank holidays
Transcript
I would recommend working for Oxfordshire.
The support within my role has been absolutely amazing, and my team are very very supportive any problems I have, you know, we have Teams groups, we have peer support sessions, 1– 2–1’s, supervisions and group supervisions.
I love supporting my teams, and one of the things that I’m really aware of is our very clear access to Senior Managers.
Even the higher up people are always available to answer your emails, or to answer your questions and to remind you that you are valued.
Everybody’s supportive.
It can be challenging but you know that there’s lots of people to rally around you and help you.
There are numerous resources online as well, documents and policies and information case studies that we can refer to.
I do feel like I have had that wrap around support and that I haven’t been thrown in at the deep end and that there is always someone there that I can go to and say that I am overwhelmed, and I’ve always felt that listened to in that.
It’s definitely encouraged that you prioritise your own time and your own self care and not just the people that you are supporting.
Developed from a newly qualified through to an assistant team manager at Oxfordshire County Council.
It’s a place where you get given opportunities, it’s a place where people invest in you.
I think it’s a chance to do a lot of good, there’s a lot of room for impacting the people that we serve
Onboarding is a really big part of people starting and if you get it right people really feel valued so that’s something that I take really seriously. We spend a lot of time planning what that persons first few weeks are gonna look like in terms of a bespoke timetable depending on what they need in terms of shadowing and support, we ensure that you have got a buddy in your team so that when you join you’ve got somebody that you can always go to, to ask all of those silly questions that you might feel embarrassed to ask your manager. You’ll have loads of one to one supervision time and that’s informal and formal just to make sure that anything comes up you’ve got covered.
Oxfordshire’s capacity to listen to their workers, listen to their teams and understand what we need in terms of support and to look at how that is offered sets it apart from other local authorities. I’ve received lots of training, lots of opportunities to go and do lots of training I’m currently with support from the County I’m doing my Masters in Psychology.
We do have to work really hard for our families but when we are off, we are off and so really trying to be as productive while you’re at work while obviously having a good time as well and chatting and having tea breaks and everything, but then when you go home and you have annual leave you really switch off and everybody’s quite hot on each other about switching off in the evenings, weekends and annual leave.
It definitely can be challenging, and some days can be more challenging than others. Something that I really enjoy about my team is that there is always somebody to kind of check in with, or somebody to support you on those really challenging days so you know if something is harder or you are struggling that there is always somebody to go to for a bit of advice or you know who will just check in on you and that’s something that I really enjoy about my team, because when you’ve worked really hard with something and you see the families that you are working with working really hard as well then to come out of it the other side and overcome those challenges can be really really positive for you and for the families.