Newham

Newham is a vibrant and developing part of inner London and home to over 350,000 people, making us one of the largest boroughs in London.

We are proud to be one of the most diverse local authority areas in the UK, with over 104 languages spoken by our children and their families. Newham also has a flourishing youth population – almost a quarter of our residents are under-18 - so children's service is always a priority for our Council.

Our Borough has benefited from the Olympic Legacy following the London 2012 Games, with regeneration continuing in the shape of new and affordable homes, high streets, businesses, and public spaces.

As well as the London Stadium (now home to West Ham United) and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (boasting the London Aquatic Centre, the AccelorMittal Orbit and award-winning parkland), Newham is also home to the ExCel Centre, London City Airport, Westfield Stratford City, and the northern bank of the Thames barrier.

Newham also enjoys excellent transport links.  We’re only 15 minutes from the heart of London with the bustling hub at Stratford serving Tube and rail links in to central London and out to the east of England. London City Airport is in Newham, the Emirates Airline cable cars cross the borough, and with Crossrail we now have links even further afield.

We’ve been working tirelessly to establish a Centre of Excellence for Children’s Services through investment, co-production and by continuously developing our 'Circles of Support' practice model; centring on systemic and restorative practice and a specialist support offer for our practitioners. Don’t just take our word for it – Circles of Support was recently nominated for the prestigious MJ Innovation in Children’s/Adults Services award. 

Ofsted described Newham as having a positive culture of learning and development and we always try to develop talent in-house. We’ve promoted 40 internal colleagues during the past two years, and have put 46 practitioners through systemic higher education since 2020. We value your development and at Newham career progression is reality for many. We also understand how tough social work can be – so most of our QSW posts involve only 1 day per week in the office alongside flexible working. We want to maximise your wellbeing and make life easier.

We’ve been working hard to make Newham a great place to practise.

• We’re a GOOD local authority and have established a centre of excellence for Children’s Services.

• Ofsted reported that we have OUTSTANDING senior leadership.

• Stability: 100% of our Service Managers and 71% of Team Managers are permanent.

• Our firmly established practice model, Circles of Support, was recently nominated for the prestigious MJ Award for Innovation in Children’s Services and allows systemic, restorative practice to flourish.

• We offer genuine flexible working, with only 1 day in the office per week (off duty)

• Career progression; we’ve promoted 37 internal colleagues in the past 2 years.

• Social Care Academy – 47 social workers have studied for systemic higher education with us since 2020.

• A competitive package of up to £54,890 (includes market supplement).

• Oyster card/parking permit for business use.

• Wellbeing service, leisure and discount benefits (Council scheme).

• Travel season ticket loan, cycle scheme, Local Authority pension.

Interested in working for us? Hear from our staff below on why we think Newham is a great place to be a social worker. 

 For more information and detail about working in children’s services in Newham here. 

If you have any questions about applying for roles within children's social care at Newham, please contact our Recruitment and Onboarding Lead Liam Barrell at liam.barrell@newham.gov.uk.

If you are interested in having an informal discussion about working in children's social care at Newham please contact:

• Emma Cockerell, Director of Operations Children's Social Care and Safeguarding at emma.Cockerell@newham.gov.uk, or

• Beverley Halligan, Principal Social Worker at beverley.Halligan@Newham.gov.uk