Kinship Assessment Team

A connected person is anyone with a connection to the child and their family such as wider family members or friends.

Where a child is living with the connected person under a kinship fostering arrangement, we provide support and guidance to the carers whilst assessing their suitability to be approved long term as the child/children’s foster carers. This assessment is then presented at the Fostering Panel where our social workers will support the connected people to attend.

Where we are based

We are a Countywide team based out of Shire Hall in central Gloucester. We are part of the Fostering service and sit in an open plan office on the second floor along with our Fostering colleagues. There is plenty of space in the offices for everyone to work alongside one another, or to find individual space if needed.

Who we are

Our team is made up of one Team Manager, two Part-time Deputy Team Managers, 10 Social Workers (some Part-time some Full-time) and two Family Support Workers. We are a dedicated, experienced team with specialist skills and knowledge relating to all things kinship.

If the child is not living with their connected person under a fostering arrangement then we will carry out stage 2 viabilities for Special Guardianship Orders and if positive, we will carry out a full Special Guardianship Assessment or a Planned Fostering Assessment if required. Our assessments may be used in court to make decisions as to the best long-term plan for the child; this may require us to give evidence in court.

Alongside the assessment and support being given, we provide guidance and support to all the social work teams across the council in relation to kinship care and provide training to both carers and social work teams.

Skills you'll need to join the team

To be successful in this team you need to be able to have excellent inter-personal skills and be able to build relationships quickly under pressure. Many of our carers or prospective carers have taken on, or are considering taking on, care of a child in an unplanned and unexpected situation where emotions are high for everyone.  They need guidance and support to ensure they are doing the job they are being asked to do, whilst also understanding that they see themselves as family or family friends.

You need to be able to advocate for your carers and be able to justify your views in formal arenas such as court or professionals meetings.

There is a high degree of autonomy within this role and an expectation that you can manage your own diary well, with the expectation that you meet sometimes very pressured timescales so that the permanence plan for a child is not unduly delayed.

You need to be able to have some very difficult and challenging conversations with carers and be able to interpret the current and future needs of a child from their experiences to consider if the carers can care for the child/ren.

You need to be able to pull out the strengths and vulnerabilities of carers from their narrative and be able to analyse this within an assessment, paying particular attention to risk.

Why you should join us

Here's what our staff say:

"I would say the Kinship Assessment Team is the best team to work for because the managers are supportive and approachable, and they always work hard to protect their staff and are really good at managing people’s caseloads. The wider team is really friendly, and everyone participates in team meetings and away days. Lots of workers have been in the team for a number of years so there’s lots of knowledge and experience as well as a lower turnover of staff. The work is really interesting whilst being manageable and varied."
Fleur, Social Worker

 That's not all...

Our team covers the whole of the county so we support a hybrid model of home and office working with most of the team choosing to work from their homes to make travelling and home visits easier.

We have monthly team meetings in person and expect our duty worker to be office based. We also have regular team away days to ensure that knowledge and skill development is promoted; we really enjoy the team building element of team away days.

We hold monthly reflect and learn sessions online where our senior social worker or deputies provide up to date research and learning, or where a specific case is considered by the team to enable reflection and learning.

Every third month we hold these sessions jointly with the Kinship Support Team who we work closely with.

Get in touch

We'd love to tell you more!

✉ Email: CSWrecruitment@gloucestershire.gov.uk