Job Details:

Salary range: £42,912 - £46,854 per annum. Salary negotiable depending upon experience 
Work location: 4 Frampton Street, Westminster, London NW8 8LF
Hours per week: 36 
Contract type: Permanent
Vetting requirements: Enhanced DBS Check  
Closing date: 26 April 2026
Interview date: 8 May 2026

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF EMPOWERED FAMILIES

Children’s Services at Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories where compassionate people bring everything to their work, including their own experiences of parenting.

Take Melissa, a Senior Social Worker in our Assessment Team. She’s one of the first people families meet when accessing our services, so building rapport is critical. And that’s where Melissa’s life experience really counts. She had her first child as a young adult and knows just how judgemental others can be.

Melissa has something unique to offer and it can’t be found in a textbook: her own experience of raising two children as a single parent. She’s committed to empowering others: giving them the skills, resources and confidence they need, from housing support to baby supplies. And if the family has older kids? Well, she’s been there too. Her youngest is now 15 and Melissa knows the challenges of helping young people navigate inner-city life.

Melissa first learnt her craft as a support worker, then completed her statutory training as social worker – all while raising her family single-handed. And she’s not done yet. Supported by her managers, she’s been training in systemic therapy and is already looking forward to her next development opportunity. 

Melissa’s more than a social worker; she’s a shining example to the families she works with every day.

The Role:

As a Care Leaver and Looked After Child Advocate, you can make your own powerful contribution to children and young people across Westminster. Your day-to-day will be varied and dynamic, and will include visiting, engaging with, and completing tailored direct work with care experienced children and young people up to the age of 25. Acting as an advocate for their views, wishes and feelings, you’ll speak on their behalf or help them present their views to the service.

A source of support, guidance and understanding, you’ll help empower self-advocacy, ensuring the children and young people you support understand agreed outcomes, available options and complaints procedures. Where necessary, you’ll challenge issues on behalf of the young person, ensuring their views are fully represented and given due consideration at relevant forums. Liaising with colleagues, internal and external agencies and senior management, you’ll provide up-to-date, effective reporting on children and young people in your caseload.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information. 

About You:

An established professional with a recognised qualification which evidences direct involvement with children and young people, or similar, you’ll have experience completing direct work with care experienced children of different ages, needs and cultural backgrounds. This might include unaccompanied young people seeking asylum, children with disabilities or children in residential settings.

Bringing strong verbal and written communication skills to the role, you’ll confidently vary your communication style to convey and advocate for the voices and needs of children and young people. In a previous role, you’ll have compiled written reports, managed a caseload, and provided advocacy and ‘non-instructed’ advocacy for children and young people. Your knowledge of safeguarding and child protection policies and procedures — including of the legal and policy frameworks for vulnerable children, young adults and adults — will be demonstrable and up to date.

More than anything, you’ll be an empathetic source of support for children and young people. Centering their voices, and taking a sensitive approach to everything you do, you’ll provide a safe space for young people to express their views and feel listened to. This is a fantastic opportunity to help improve outcomes for care experienced young people, join a tight-knit, industry leading team, and to grow your career in a varied, rewarding role.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.

We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants.