An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Adoption Support Team based in Sheffield as part of One Adoption South Yorkshire who work to support adopted children and their families.

The Regional Adoption Agency spans four local authorities; Doncaster, Barnsley, Sheffield and Rotherham and whilst you will be based in Sheffield, you will work with colleagues across the region to provide a consistent service to the families we work with.

The role is varied, offering support to the adopted children and their families, as well as birth families, particularly around staying in touch arrangements.

To do this work, we use our skills and knowledge in attachment, trauma and relationship-based working to complete a whole range of social work tasks, including assessments of need, group work, direct work, training and workshops and commissioning of therapeutic support packages via the

Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund.

We also strive to complete therapeutic work with families ourselves where possible, for example, offering support around therapeutic parenting, life story work, and addressing needs around staying in touch with birth family. You must be eager to learn and develop your practice skills to offer high levels of support to families.

The role requires you to be able to organise your work to meet practice standards and deadlines. You will need excellent interpersonal skills, excellent organisational skills and the role will require you to attend meetings across the region.

You must be a qualified social worker with significant post qualification experience and be registered with Social Work England and willing to complete an enhanced DBS.

You will need a good understanding of the legal and policy frameworks surrounding adoption and adoption support.

Your role will involve extensive use of IT systems.

You will be part of a duty rota, covering all aspects of adoption.

We can offer successful candidates regular and good quality supervision, and there are lots of training and development opportunities within the Regional Adoption Agency.

To work as part of a team and be able to work flexibly to meet the demands of the role.

Confident when communicating with people both in writing and verbally.

Because we pride ourselves on excellent standards you must be highly motivated and committed to improving your practice via continuous professional development. Use of a car would be desirable.

We are committed to the equality of opportunity in the services provided to customers and all aspects of employment. We warmly welcome applications from all sectors of the community. Our recruitment policies, procedures and practices enable all applicants to be considered on merit and ability to do the job. We will make reasonable adjustments, in line with the Equality Act, for disabled applicants if these are needed.

For further discussion about this opportunity, please contact Laura.Williams@sheffield.gov.uk or on 07867163280

We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.
It is a great time to join us and we welcome your application.

Under the Disability Confident Scheme, disabled applicants, who meet the essential criteria of this job, are guaranteed an interview.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare and safety of children and vulnerable adults and expect all staff to share this commitment. All successful candidates will be required to complete an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service Check.

Full-time employees work 37 hours for 52 weeks of the year and we offer a generous holiday entitlement. We are open to discussions about a wide range of flexible working opportunities which benefit you and the Council, including reduced hour contracts, working part time or as a job share.

If you are appointed to this role, your starting salary will be at the bottom of the grade. If you provide payslip evidence that your basic pay is greater than the bottom of the grade, we will consider starting you at the point of minimum advantage within the grade.

Equality of pay is extremely important to us. All roles at Sheffield City Council are going through an evaluation process which may result in changes to some pay arrangements from 2026. Find out more on our Sheff news page.