Adoption Social Worker

Adopt London North is the Regional Adoption Agency for 6 North London boroughs - Haringey, Enfield, Camden, Hackney, Barnet, and Islington, who are our host borough. We are responsible for family finding and transition planning for children with an adoption plan (Family Finding team); recruiting, assessing and supporting prospective adoptive parents (Recruitment and Assessment team); and providing support to adoptive families, adopted adults and birth parents (Adoption Support team). We also have an Adoption Panel service. We work with our other Adopt London partners to develop and share best practice and opportunities for families effected by adoption in London.

The current role is for a Social Worker in the Adoption Support team (with future opportunities to change teams). The Adoption Support team is a busy team, supporting adoptive families, adopted adults and birth families, working with therapeutic providers and the Adoption Support Fund, holding a caseload of families who need advice, support and advocacy, accessing and sharing records with adopted adults and helping birth families remain in contact with one another. People seek our support when they are struggling to meet a child’s needs, when they have questions about their own life story, when they need to make sense of all the challenges that come from being part of a family effected by adoption.

In order to be considered for this role you will need to demonstrate (in both your application and your interview):

- You understand both the benefits and the challenges adoption brings.
- You need to show your understanding of the different types of support offered by Regional Adoption Agencies and think about what might be important to adopted people and their families.
- You need to know the current issues being addressed in adoption.
- You will need to have at least 2 years’ experience of working in front-line children’s Social Work teams, including some experience of working with children with a plan of adoption.
- You will need a commitment to support families and empathy for all the challenges they can face.
- You will need to be a qualified and experienced Social Worker, registered with Social Work England.

Islington use a Motivational Interviewing model for working with staff and service users and part of your interview will be a role play that will help you show your skills in this area.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion: We are committed to ensuring that our communities are represented across our workforce and at all levels. We are taking concerted, meaningful and intentional action to create an inclusive culture because we believe this is at the heart of enabling diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking, to thrive in our organisation. We are aware of systemic oppression and its impact on individuals and communities in terms of unequal access to services and opportunities. As such, we are taking positive action to challenge all forms of discrimination and injustice to make Islington a fairer and equitable place to live and work.