Service Manager: Fostering Recruitment, Assessment and Retention


Company:	Staffordshire County Council
Salary:	£61,217 to £65,908 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Staffordshire Place 1 , Stafford, ST16 2DH
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	15 Sept 2026
Closing date:	29 Sept 2026

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Summary

Our Children and Families services and our vision here in Staffordshire is rooted in four core principles that underpin everything we do:

Families first – network and community always

Right help, right time – proportionate, timely and co-produced with children and families

Whole-system responsibility for supporting children and families to be happy, healthy and safe

Permanence as belonging from day one

To achieve our ambition, we have taken a bold decision to transform our service structure and we’re looking for talented, values-driven leaders who can champion these principles, inspire others and help shape the future of Children and Families services in Staffordshire.

We want to create a more resilient, child-centred and future-focused system that enables children, young people and families to receive the right help at the right time.

Through this redesign, we are strengthening leadership, increasing capacity and creating clearer lines of accountability across our services. These changes will support high-quality practice, stronger partnerships and better outcomes for children and families, while ensuring we are well positioned to respond to national reforms and future challenges.

Main Responsibilities

This is a key leadership role within Children and Families Services, responsible for ensuring enough high-quality foster carers are recruited, assessed and supported to meet the needs of children and young people. Leading several fostering and kinship teams, you will drive service improvement, champion excellent practice and help shape services that deliver stability, permanence and positive outcomes for children. You will support with Agency Decision Making functions and Regulation 24 decisions.

You will:

Provide strategic and operational leadership across fostering recruitment, assessment, retention, kinship assessment and family support services.

Lead the delivery of fostering recruitment and marketing activity, helping to attract, engage and retain a diverse range of foster carers.

Ensure fostering services are delivered to the highest standards, meeting all statutory, regulatory and quality requirements.

Use performance data, quality assurance and feedback from children and carers to drive continuous improvement and positive outcomes.

Build strong relationships with partners, stakeholders and multi-agency networks to deliver joined-up support for children and families.

Manage budgets, resources and service development projects effectively, ensuring services remain sustainable, responsive and outcome focused.

The Ideal Candidate

You will have:

A relevant professional/management qualification or evidence of

substantial management training

Substantial experience in managing teams within children’s social

care within a multi-agency environment.

In-depth knowledge, understanding and experience of working with

relevant legislation policy and procedures, including the statutory

framework for fostering, National Minimum Standards and relevant statutory guidance.

Effective understanding of placement sufficiency and stability

Experience of leading foster recruitment activity and an

understanding of marketing and communications strategies.

Experience of overseeing high quality fostering assessments

In-depth understanding of statutory frameworks, national agendas, and best practice for children in care

The assessment pr

ocess:

Throughout the recruitment process, you will be assessed against the three key competency areas:

Children & Families Core Principles

Leadership

Technical and Role-Specific Competencies

The process will take the form of in person interview which will include,

a role specific exercise

an element involving our Children and Young People and a Foster Carer (to be confirmed on interview invitation)

Interview date to be confirmed.

Don’t feel you meet all the requirements? We value transferable skills, experiences, and qualifications so consider applying anyway or for an informal chat about the role please contact

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

Please note: The minimum criteria in the ideal candidate section detailed above will be used if you are applying under one of our Interview Guarantee Schemes, detailed below.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.

We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

Our benefits:

We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to

Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire

Our recruitment process:

As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities

As part of our commitment as a

Disability Confident employer, a

Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting

care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.

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Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme

About Disability Confident

Disability Confident is a government scheme. It encourages employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with long term health conditions.