Professional Practitioner - FIT

Salary: Grade 10 with a current salary range of £38,510 - £43,149

per annum for 37 hours per week.

Hours: 37hrs per week - Full-time  2yr fixed term

Closing date: 28.10.2026.

The Fostering Intervention Team (FIT) is an exciting and developing service, offering a unique opportunity to make a meaningful difference to the lives of care-experienced children and young people living in fostering arrangements. We are seeking motivated, aspirational, and committed practitioners who are passionate about supporting children, young people, and their carers to achieve positive outcomes, build resilience, and promote stable, nurturing family relationships.

About the service;

The Fostering Intervention Team (FIT) is a specialist service that works with children and young people living in foster homes, providing targeted support to strengthen relationships, improve outcomes, and maintain permanence and stability. The team delivers therapeutic and evidence-based interventions, working collaboratively with carers, social workers, and partner agencies to reduce risk, build resilience, and prevent permanence breakdown wherever possible.

About the Role

The Professional Practitioner is a role within the Fostering Intervention Team, providing evidence-based support to children, carers, and families to promote permanence stability, reduce risk, and improve outcomes for children in fostering arrangements. The role also provides leadership and supervision to Family Intervention Workers, oversees complex cases and quality assurance activities, and contributes to service development and multi-agency decision-making to ensure effective, coordinated support.

How You'll Make a Difference

  Deliver high-quality, evidence-based interventions that support care-experienced children and young people, strengthen relationships, and promote stability within fostering  families.

  Provide leadership, guidance, and reflective supervision to Family Intervention Workers, ensuring consistently high standards of practice and positive outcomes for children and carers.

  Lead on complex and high-risk cases, using professional expertise to assess need, manage risk, and coordinate effective multi-agency support plans.

  Champion a child-centred and trauma-informed approach, ensuring the voices of children and young people are heard and reflected in all planning and decision-making.

  Contribute to service development, quality assurance, and the continuous improvement of FIT, helping to shape innovative and effective support for foster carers, kinship carers, and the children they care for.

What You'll Bring

  Ideally a recognised professional qualification in social work, youth work, counselling, psychology, education, or a related field, with relevant post-qualifying experience working with children, young people, and families or experience of working with children and families

  Experience of working with care-experienced children and young people, including those living in fostering, kinship, or other family-based care arrangements.

  Demonstrable knowledge of safeguarding, child development, trauma-informed practice, and attachment theory, with the ability to apply this knowledge effectively in practice.

  Experience of providing professional leadership, mentoring, supervision, or guidance to practitioners, supporting high-quality practice and positive outcomes.

  Strong partnership-working and communication skills, with the ability to build effective relationships with children, carers, colleagues, and multi-agency professionals, and contribute positively to complex decision-making and service development.

Why Join Us?

At Somerset Council, we're a progressive organisation committed to improving lives and shaping better services for our communities. Based in one of England's most beautiful counties, it's a great place to build your career and enjoy an excellent quality of life.

• 30 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays, with the option to purchase additional leave.
• Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), one of the UK's most enhanced and secure pension schemes.
• Flexible and hybrid working arrangements to support work-life balance, where service needs allow.
• Health and wellbeing support, including access to confidential employee assistance services.
• Paid volunteering opportunities, helping you make a difference both inside and outside of work.

Find out more about working at Somerset Council:
https://www.somerset.gov.uk/jobs-and-careers/working-at-somerset-council/

Further Information

• Working pattern / hybrid working
• Access to car / travel around Somerset
• DBS checks
• 11.11.2026 - County Hall

• Flexible working is central to our provision and the staff you will supervise will work to a 7 day week rota pattern including early shifts (7.00 am – 3.00 pm), twilight shifts (11.00 am – 7.00 pm) and late shifts (2.00 pm – 11.00 pm). When staff are not rota’d to work an early, twilight or a late shift, they can work core hours. You are not expected to work to be ‘on call’ or available to your team 24/7 across these shift patterns as your staff team will link in with the ‘Foster Carer On Call support line’ if needed.

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. We are only able to proceed with candidates who already have the right to work in the UK without the need for VISA sponsorship.

For an informal chat about the role, you can contact Emma Martin via email: emma.martin@somerset.gov.uk

We believe diversity makes us stronger and are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences, whose unique perspectives help us better serve the people of Somerset.

If you currently work for Somerset Council, please apply via the internal SuccessFactors careers page.

You can find a copy of the job description here:  AG1002 Professional Practitioner