Social Worker - Children Disability Service

Are you a Social Worker looking for a new challenge? ‘Social workers love working in East Sussex because they feel valued and supported.’ - Ofsted Report 2024

We are looking for a Social Worker to join our dynamic Children’s Disability Service. This is an exciting opportunity to develop your assessment, planning and intervention skills in working with disabled children and their families.

The vacancy is within our Family Support Team, you will be able to play a key role in working closely with families to empower them to develop bespoke care plans. We are a very friendly, supportive and stable team with longstanding members who are very experienced in their roles. This could be the perfect opportunity to develop your own experience of different types of work such as; working alongside continuing care, working to create truly integrated education, health and care plans, undertaking mental capacity assessments and understanding more about the court of protection deprivation of liberties processes, or working with children and their families after diagnoses and supporting them to come to terms with change and loss of their child’s health or behavioural needs. You will learn about how we assess need in a fair and transparent way.

You will be working with families who want to work closely with you and alongside experienced networks who want to affect positive change for disabled children and their families. Your role will include assessment, planning and interventions with children in need, children we care for, and children in need of protection, as well as looking ahead to preparation for adulthood and ensuring the child’s voice in this. An increasing area of our work is in meeting children with needs across neuro-diversity & special educational needs and CDS offers these further opportunities whilst also retaining a real focus on safeguarding.

We have high aspirations for children in our care and we want to deliver an ambitious and creative service which meets the complex needs of our children. In this role we provide regular individual and group supervision; access to excellent learning and development provisions, including specifically related training courses such as keeping safe, positive behaviour support and Makaton.

We’re looking for somebody who is passionate about making a difference and able to use creative and personalised strengths-based approaches to achieve positive outcomes for disabled children and their families. You will be able to work in partnership with disabled children and their families as well as colleagues in Children’s and Adult’s Services, Education, Health and the Voluntary & Community sector.

We are looking for candidates who:

• have a recognised Social Work qualification.
• are Social Work England registered
• have experience of completing assessments from which effective plans are based.
• can engage children using creativity, compassion and authority to build relationships and overcome resistance.

At Interview the main areas we’d like you to tell us about include:

• Your work with children and young people
• How you communicate with others
• Your application of research or theory in practice
• Your strong social work leadership skills

To apply for this role, please follow the ‘Apply Now’ button above to upload your CV and Supporting Statement. When writing your Supporting Statement, please be sure to address how you meet all the criteria in the person specification, drawing on any relevant work/life experience, education, or personal interests.

Please download the Job Description & Person Specification for more information.

For guidance on how to write an application see our how to apply page.

Interviews will take place face to face at St Marys House on 3rd or 4th February 2026.

Candidates who meet certain criteria are given priority when we shortlist. See our priority status page for details

Our unparalleled social work education team are dedicated to supporting our social workers grow and develop within and beyond their roles.

Salary: Social Worker £44,119 - £50,435 per annum (Grade SS11-12)*

*Please note that these salaries include a market supplement which has been agreed to the end of June 2026 - you can view the basic salary on our Salaries scales page

We offer a diverse range of benefits to help and support you during your employment. More information can be found on our benefits page.

For an informal discussion about recruitment or if you’d like a chat with a particular service practice manager please contact Claire Collerson – Claire.collerson@Eastsussex.gov.uk