Job description
Salary: £56,475 to £61,133 Location: The Council House Hours: 37 hours a week Closing Date: 14 June 2026 Contract Type: Permanent About the Role Derby City Council is seeking an experienced and motivated Team Manager to lead a specialist team of Social Workers delivering statutory services to: • Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC), and • Children who have a long-term plan of care and migration-related needs (for example, children from EU states who have settled in the UK and are looked after by the Local Authority). The team will ensure all legal duties are met both in relation to children’s looked after status and their asylum or immigration status, in line with the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework and regulatory and statutory guidance. You will ensure practice is firmly rooted in Derby Children’s Social Care’s strengths-based practice model. Alongside operational management, this role will hold a strategic lead on specialist migration work within Children’s Social Care, ensuring that all work: • Reflects the latest regulatory and statutory requirements for Local Authorities, and • Addresses the legal duties owed to young people as they become eligible for leaving care services at age 18, ensuring continuity of support and provision up to age 25. Key Responsibilities • Lead, manage and support a team of Social Workers working with UASC and children in long-term care with migration-related needs. • Ensure high-quality, child-centred assessments, care planning and interventions which promote safety, stability and permanency. • Oversee practice to ensure that all legal duties in relation to looked after children and asylum/immigration status are fully met. • Provide strategic leadership and expertise on specialist migration issues affecting children and young adults up to age 25. • Ensure robust transition planning for young people approaching 18, including those eligible for leaving care services, to secure continuity of support and provision. • Maintain robust quality assurance and performance management arrangements, ensuring practice is of a consistently high standard. • Provide reflective supervision, coaching and professional development opportunities for team members. • Ensure compliance with statutory requirements, regulatory frameworks and guidance relating to children’s social care, safeguarding and asylum/immigration. • Work closely with partner agencies Home Office, legal representatives, health, education, voluntary sector) to coordinate effective and lawful support. • Contribute to service development and implementation of the Children’s Social Care National Framework locally, developing and embedding innovative and progressive practice. About You You will be a confident, reflective and compassionate leader with a strong commitment to improving outcomes for children and young adults with migration-related needs. You will combine high-quality social work practice knowledge with the ability to lead, influence and innovate. Essential qualifications and registration • A recognised Social Work qualification BA, MA, DipSW or equivalent). • Social Work England registration. Essential experience • Substantial post-qualifying experience in front-line children’s social work. • Experience of care proceedings and court-related work. • Experience in a leadership and/or management role within Children’s Social Care Senior Social Worker, Practice Supervisor, Assistant Team Manager, Team Manager, or equivalent). • Experience of working with children in specialist migration contexts, such as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children or children with immigration/settled status needs. • Experience of working with looked after children and care experienced young people, including planning for long-term care and transitions. Knowledge, skills and attributes • Strong understanding of child welfare and safeguarding legal frameworks Children Act 1989/2004, Children (Leaving Care) regulation, Working Together to Safeguard Children). • Knowledge of legal and regulatory frameworks related to asylum and immigration status for children and young adults up to age 25, including rights and entitlements of UASC and care leavers with unresolved or limited leave status. • Demonstrable experience of quality assurance, audit and performance management in social work services. • Strong analytical and decision-making skills, with the ability to balance risk and protective factors and make evidence-based decisions. • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to build effective, culturally competent relationships with children, young adults, families, carers and partner agencies. • Proven ability to be solution-focused, resilient and able to manage complexity, ambiguity and competing demands. • Commitment to strengths-based, child- and young adult-centred practice and to working in partnership with children and young people as experts in their own lives. • Ability to lead and contribute to strategic development, policy implementation and service improvement, particularly in relation to migration and asylum. What We Offer • The opportunity to lead an innovative and progressive specialist team at the forefront of migration and asylum work within Derby’s Children’s Social Care. • A supportive management structure and peer network, with regular reflective supervision. • Access to ongoing professional development, including training in leadership, safeguarding and specialist migration/asylum practice. • A commitment to staff wellbeing, flexible working arrangements (where possible) and a positive, inclusive workplace culture. For an informal discussion about the role,