Adoption Panel Advisor

Organisation:Leicestershire County Council

WorkLocation:County Hall LE3 8RA

WorkerCategory:Hybrid Worker

Salary:Grade- 47829 plus market premium (pro rata for part-time)

WorkingHours:37 hours per week

ContractType:Permanent

Closing Date:2^nd December 2025

Interview Date(s):TBC

About the Role

Leicestershire FAL are looking to recruit an enthusiastic motivated and experienced social worker to act as Adoption Panel Adviser. You will play a central role in ensuring that the adoption panel operates efficiently giving written and verbal advice to the adoption service adoption panel and the agency decision maker (ADM).

You will quality assure all reports for panel as well as those for plans of adoption offer skilled and in-depth advice and help drive continuous improvement across Leicestershires adoption service.

You will build strong relationships with panel chairs panel members the adoption service medical advisors and senior managers and play a key role as link between these.

You will work alongside a full and well-established central list of independent panel members who work hard to achieve positive outcomes for our children and to ensure the continued high standard of practice and outcomes for Leicestershires children. You will be responsible for organising the annual training day for panel members as well as providing regular information and updates to ensure their knowledge is kept up to date.

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders please see ourpolicy statement.

About You

To apply for this post you must:

• A recognised social work qualification and current professional registration with Social Work England.
• Significant post-qualifying experience in adoption fostering or permanence planning including management experience.
• Comprehensive knowledge of adoption regulations national minimum standards safeguarding frameworks and best practice in adoption and the confidence to give written and verbal professional advice on matters relating to these.
• The ability to quality assure large amounts of written information and provide analysis and advice based on this.
• Excellent communication skills (both verbal and written) for a variety of audiences including panel chairs panel members the adoption service and senior managers and the ability to offer professional challenge and constructive feedback.
• The ability to work collaboratively with panel chairs the adoption service and across FAL to drive forward best practice.
• A strong commitment to achieving best outcomes for our children in Leicestershire.

You must also have an understanding of and commitment to equality diversity and inclusion.

In addition we expect you to shareour commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Thereforewherever possible we will consider working arrangements that suit an individuals personal circumstanceswhilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role please contact the person named below. This mayinclude requests for term-time working part-time hours compressed hours flexible start and finish times home/remote working etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in theOur Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion please contact:

Harriet Powell (Adoption Panel Advisor) or Michelle Robinson (Service Manager)

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality diversity and inclusion at every warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the About You section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the About You section above.For more information see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore if you are interested please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning0(select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: applying for this post you agree to ourTerms and Conditions.