Overview
Nottingham City Council is inviting applications for a Panel Member to join the Central List of the fostering panel. The panel makes recommendations on cases presented to it, including mainstream fostering approvals, kinship care assessments, and reviews. The panel provides independent scrutiny and quality assurance of reports, reporting back to the agency.
Job details
* Contract Type: Casual
* Working Hours: Casual
* Worker Type: Mobile
* Salary: £24,413 - £25,185 per annum (pro-rata for part-time) + £150 per Panel
* Location: Home-based / Loxley House, Notingham, NG2 3NG
* Closing Date: 13 October 2025
* Interviews will be held: Week commencing 27 October 2025
We’ve got an exciting opportunity available for talented individuals to join our workforce. Working for Nottingham City Council offers competitive pay, leave entitlement and access to a generous pension scheme, with a commitment to an innovative, inclusive and progressive work culture.
For informal enquiries, please contact Donna Cole, Panel Advisor, by email at donna.cole@nottinghamcity.gov.uk.
About The Role
This role involves joining the Central List of panel members and committing to the panel rota throughout the year. The fostering panel makes recommendations on cases presented to panel, including mainstream foster carer approvals, kinship care assessments, foster carer reviews and reviews following concerns. The panel has an important function in quality assurance of reports and ensuring independent scrutiny over cases presented.
About You
The ideal candidate will have:
Experience And Qualifications
* Experience, either professionally or personally or both, of the placement of children in fostering or adoptive families or of children being cared for away from their birth family.
* A Social Work qualification will be necessary for certain Panel Members.
Knowledge
* An appreciation of the effect of separation and loss on children.
* Awareness of the richness of different kinds of families and their potential for meeting children’s needs.
* Some understanding of the purpose and function of the Panel and of the agency which the Panel is serving, or a willingness to learn.
Abilities
* Good listening and communication skills.
* The ability to read, process and analyse large amounts of complex and sometimes distressing information.
* The ability to make an assessment and to form a view, based on the written and verbal information presented to Panel, and the confidence to articulate this at Panel.
* The ability to use personal and/or professional knowledge and experience to contribute to discussions and decision-making in a balanced and informed manner.
* The ability to work co-operatively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
Attitudes
* A commitment to keeping children within their own family or community where this is possible and to maintaining contact between children living in foster families and their birth families where this appears to be in the child’s best interests.
* A commitment to fostering as a way of meeting a child’s needs where this appears to be in the child’s best interests.
* A commitment to safeguarding and promoting children’s welfare in mainstream and kinship foster care.
* A valuing of diversity in relation to ethnicity, religion, gender, disability and sexuality.
* An understanding of, and a commitment to, the need for confidentiality.
* A willingness to increase knowledge and understanding of issues through reading, discussion and training.
* A willingness to contribute constructively to the annual review of their Panel membership and, as required, to that of other Panel Members and the Chair.
Note: A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.
Nottingham City Council is committed to recruiting a workforce that reflects the communities we serve and welcomes applications from people of all backgrounds and abilities. We encourage flexible working arrangements where possible and welcome discussions during the selection process.
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