Working in Oldham

There’s never been a better time to join Children’s Social Care in Oldham and take the next step in your career with us through our Social Work Academy. 

Officially rated as a ‘Good’ place to work (OFSTED ILACS July 2024), we have the highest aspirations in achieving the best outcomes for our children and families, and in sustaining them within their communities. 

When you Choose Oldham, you are joining a wonderful borough of diversity – a place where people of all cultures come to play, learn and work together. As the home to some of the most diverse communities of any local authority in the country, this is one the greatest strengths you will find here as a social worker, as you are given the opportunity to use such a breadth of your skills, that you won’t anywhere else. 

While the life experiences and challenges facing our children and families are incredibly varied and require an inclusive response to recognising their unique strengths and supporting them, we are a great place to work for people who, at their core, have the desire to make a real difference for children and families and help give them the best start in life. 

In return, we will offer you a diverse range of work opportunities with constant wraparound support and development, making Oldham the best place to develop your Social Work career. 

Our Academy is built around five principles: 

  • Enabling the best in social work practice 
  • Investing in high quality learning and development programmes and resources 
  • Recognising and rewarding success and challenging improvement 
  • Supporting mental health and wellbeing 
  • Promoting diversity and inclusion 

With clear progression pathways in Oldham from Student Social Worker to senior management, you’ll receive access to high quality learning and development opportunities as well as a competitive salary and benefits package. This is all embedded in a culture of high support alongside respectful mutual challenge to help sharpen your skills and achieve our vision for excellence. 

We’re looking for motivated and ambitious individuals who share our aspirations to join us, so if this is you, we look forward to hearing from you soon. 

Our Social Work practice 

Here in Oldham, Social Work practice is driven by our vision thatchildren and families are at the centre of everything we do to develop their strengths and resilience, ensuring all children have a stable life and reach their full potential. 

Our ethical belief is that our responsibility to children and families in need of help should start from the position that families are empowered and supported to make positive changes, enabled to make self-determined choices and seek their own solutions that build on existing strengths and resilience within the family network. 

Our firm resolve is to work relentlessly in supporting families to remain together and where a child’s needs require alternative living arrangements, these will firstly be sought from within the child’s own family network. 

When you join our workforce, you’ll be developed to be confident, competent and skilled in social work best practice. Our commitment is to support you through regular and effective supervision to achieve the best possible outcomes for children and young people. 

Working with our partners 

Safeguarding children is a top priority for our borough and our partnerships are vital to our way of working locally. 

Through our Oldham Safeguarding Children Partnership (OSCP) we work closely with our partners and providers to promote the wellbeing of our children and young people and to prevent and protect them from any harm. 

In addition to this, through our collaboration with Greater Manchester, NHS teams, the National Probation Service, TOG Mind, and Positive Steps, Oldham’s 24/7 Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub team (MASH) is our first point of contact for safeguarding referrals. 

We also support the important work of Keeping Our Girls Safe (KOGS) to educate our children and young people on unhealthy relationships, child sexual exploitation (CSE), grooming and associated risks. KOGS help to empower and inspire our children and young people to have the confidence and self-esteem to make positive life choices, which is fully aligned to our vision of ensuring children reach their full potential. 

We at Oldham Council are also proud to be a founding patron of Mahdlo; an innovative Youth Zone that is committed to giving every young person in Oldham the opportunity to do something new, something different or something extra.  

School holidays are a challenging time for many parents with the extra costs of meals and entertainment, so we’ve also funded holiday places and food for young people who receive benefits-related free school meals, during the Summer and Winter holidays.