Directorate: Children and Families
Team: Integrated Front Door
Job Family: Providing - CBG7
Salary: £28,598 - £31,022 per annum
Hours: 37 hours per week
Location: You will be expected to attend a CBC office location as often as needed to carry out your role, which will be no less than once per month.
Contract Type: Hybrid - Permanent
Closing Date: 5th January 2026
Interview Date: Week commencing 12th January 2026
About the role:
Central Bedfordshire Council is excited to offer an opportunity for a Referral and Advice Officer within our Integrated Front Door (IFD/MASH). This is a multi-agency and Integrated team at the Front Door of Children's Services delivering an innovative and inspiring way of bringing services together to best benefit children, young people and families.
We are proud to share that the IFD has recently (October 2024) won the National Children and Young People's award for partnership working because of the way in which we work alongside internal Children and Families departments and partner agencies. The judges said 'The Integrated Front epitomises effective partnership working and serves as an amazing initiative bringing agencies together under one roof'.
The IFD provides a single point of contact for reporting concerns about child safety and well being, bringing together agencies and departments to enable 'real-time' sharing of information and support, helping families to access the support they need at the right time. We help vulnerable children who may benefit from additional Universal Services to Early Help services as well as children in need of social work support, protection and care. We work closely with a wide range of professionals; Education, Children's Centres, Community Partners, Education Health Care (SEND), Early Years SEND, Youth Services as well as professionals from partner agencies; Police, Health, IDVA, KIDVA and Drug and Alcohol Services.
There is significant development within this service (widening, strengthening, and embedding our integrated offer). Therefore this role offers the opportunity to be a part of a developing service and as such this will be an important part of this role. If you are interested in a role which means that you can be part of a programme of development, ensuring that families get the best possible service from the start of their journey when seeking or needing support, then this role will fit you well.
As a Referral & Advice Officer, you will be required to undertake daily safeguarding referrals by gathering information, liaising with parents, carers, children/young people, families and internal and external colleagues in order to form recommendations in regard to safeguarding decisions, and ensure that families are getting the right support at the right time from the right services. You will also be required to participate in phone duty which involves taking telephone enquiries from colleagues and the community taking accurate details, asking relevant questions and giving advice/information where applicable. You may be required to deal with some high level safeguarding situations, assimilating this information, and taking advice and guidance as appropriate. We are piloting a scheme where one Referral and Advice Officer will be lead responsible for phone duty, therefore one of these roles may pilot this scheme once fully trained. The team operates to tight deadlines and timescales so being efficient is essential to the role.
For this role, you will have had experience of working within safeguarding parameters and procedures in a previous role and have a good understanding of what this means. We welcome applicants with previous experience in schools, those who have been working with children and families and working with partner agencies to children's social care.
Our Offer
We have a number of rewards and benefits available to our staff, to view these please visit our Rewards and Benefits page
Our aspiration is to be a truly flexible employer. We welcome discussion on location, hours and working pattern as part of the application process.
You will be expected to demonstrate how you meet the key accountabilities and competencies in this Recruitment Pack.
Our Competency Framework and Qualification Guidance are to be read in conjunction with our Recruitment Pack.
For an informal discussion about this position, please contact: Claire Gibb or Helen Mckenzie at or call
Safeguarding:
Central Bedfordshire Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees, volunteers and contractors to share this commitment. This post is subject to the disclosure of criminal records.
To maintain a fair and consistent approach for applicants, it is Central Bedfordshire Council's policy to only consider applications made via our online application system and we therefore thank you for not submitting your application offline.
Our National Careers Service team offer a free monthly workshop covering CV writing and how to complete the statement sections of the Central Bedfordshire Council online application form. This MS Teams workshop is open to anyone from the UK and lasts around 1.5 hours. Please book your place here.
More information about this service can be found here: Support getting into work or learning | Central Bedfordshire Council