Role of an Adult Social Worker

Because of the wide range of work we cover, we have a number of different teams to choose from: Our busy Neighbourhood Clusters which cover the local population for each patch; our Hospital Clusters working with people who have been admitted into Hospital (and based in the Hospitals); our specialist Dementia and Learning Disability Clusters who work with people with dementia or a learning disability (also covering those people transitioning from childhood into adulthood); and our new Review Cluster. Depending on your interests and wishes around your professional development, we offer flexibility and actively encourage staff to move from one Cluster to another, so that they can gain experience, or specialise in an area which interests them and develop their careers.

We know that your social work qualification is only the start of your professional learning and development. As a social work professional you will be expected to undertake ongoing professional development throughout your career, to make sure that you keep your knowledge and skills up to date and that you provide the highest standard of practice for the people with whom you work. Our close connections with Suffolk University Campus and the University of East Anglia allow our Social Workers to keep up to date with the latest research and theories in social work practice. 

We promote good practice and we provide the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment programme to newly qualified social workers that join our Social Work teams. Within this year we also offer a limited caseload with increased supervision and assessment at work; we view the first year in employment as a place of continued learning in a work environment, offering shadowing opportunities and helping Social Workers to build up their networks and experience.

In Suffolk, our teams promote practitioner support through formal and informal supervision, management and peer support. Our Learning Sessions and Practice Meeting forums help staff to embed and discuss practice challenges within a multidisciplinary and community approach. 

We prioritise regular formal 1:1s with staff and offer informal supervision as and when it is needed. Senior Practitioners, Cluster Managers and Area Managers provide cover when absent and so support is always available, should you need it. In addition, our teams benefit from a culture of stability; teams are well established and staff are experienced. Anyone joining the team will benefit from the strong sense of knowledge and support around them.

A recent snapshot conducted by our Data team showed that 93% of staff had caseloads of fewer than 30 people. We believe in supporting staff (through regular supervision) to manage their caseloads well.

We believe that our Social Workers should lead the way as a key Professional, qualified members of the ACS team. We ask our Social Workers to act as role models to less experienced staff or unqualified members of the team, offering supervision and shadowing/ mentoring opportunities.

We ask Social Workers to contribute to our change programmes across ACS and the council as a whole, involving them and enlisting their help to shape our future service. We believe that this is key to making transformation successful, changing Social Work in Suffolk for the better.

Once you join one of our teams, there are plenty of opportunities for you to progress. We have established Career Development Pathways for the 3 main areas of our service which show how roles can naturally progress (for more information on these please see Career Pathway pages).

There are also opportunities to progress into the wider ACS and SCC working environment, eg into Transformation, Commissioning & Professional Advisor roles.

We work closely with key partner colleagues, the Voluntary sector and customer voice organisations, in order to transform our service. We are working with a wide range of partners as part of Health & Social Care integration which is underway in Suffolk.