Children's Services
We are passionate about supporting children and young people to be safe and healthy and achieve their potential.
We are committed to providing services that are relationship-based, trauma-informed, strengths-focused and centred on the voices and experiences of children, young people and families.
What our teams do
Children’s Services brings together a wide range of services supporting children, young people and families at every stage of their lives. From early help and family support through to supporting child welfare and child protection, meeting the needs of looked after children, working with young people in conflict with the law, and supporting young people leaving care, our shared purpose is simple: to help every child grow up safe, loved and able to reach their full potential.
Our teams
We have a diverse and varied range of teams within Children’s Services.
Aftercare and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) Team
The team helps young people transition from the care system into independent living, providing guidance and practical support up to their 26th birthday. The team also support Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children who arrive in Edinburgh without a parent or guardian, including carrying out age assessments and creating personalised care plans.
Contact and Assessment Team
The team carries out short-term assessment and intervention when requests for a social work service are first made.
Child Protection Resource
The team undertake initial child protection assessments for children and young people, focusing on immediate risk assessment and intervention.
Children’s Practice Teams
The four practice teams carry out assessments, manage risk, and deliver targeted interventions for children and young people living at home and those who are looked after and accommodated, often working with the Child Protection Register and the Children’s Hearing system.
Children Affected by Disability Team
A city-wide service that assesses need and provides specialised support for children, young people and their families where there are substantial or long-lasting disabilities.
Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) and Kinship Team
The FGDM service brings a child's extended family and close network together to create family support plans for a child's care and welfare. The Kinship service assesses and supports relatives or close family friends to care for a child when birth parents are unable to do so.
Fostering and Adoption Team
The team recruits, assesses, trains, and supports foster carers and adoptive parents to look after children who cannot live with their birth parents.
Residential Services
Our children’s houses provide a safe, supportive and loving environment to children and young people who are unable to live at home and whose needs cannot be met within a family setting.
Staff provide a trauma-informed, nurturing environment that supports children and young people’s needs and promotes safety and wellbeing, helping them to develop life skills, access education and healthcare, and maintain relationships with family and friends. The views of children and young people inform our approach to their care.
Integrated Family Connections (IFCT) Team
The IFCT team is a crisis intervention service designed to support children and young people aged 11-17 at risk of care away from home.
IFCT provide targeted interventions aimed at stabilising the home environment. They also provide outreach support to families in crisis, along with offering emergency care at Eidyn House. Eidyn House can provide care for up to six weeks while further assessment takes place.
Umbrella Hubs
The Hubs provide whole-family support for children and young people and their parents or carers, especially those who don’t meet the threshold for social work. Support is offered through community ‘pop-ups' providing access to advice, emotional support and local services.
Young People’s Service
The team works with children and young people in conflict with the law on a voluntary and statutory basis within both the Children's Hearings and Justice systems.
Jobs in our teams
We have a variety of roles within our teams, working with children, young people, and families. Whether you're just starting out, or are looking to move on with your career, our varied teams and excellent career pathways mean we can offer you a rewarding career where you can make a real difference.
We're committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits that a diverse workforce with different values, beliefs, experience, and backgrounds brings to us as an organisation.
Frontline caseloads have reduced to be balanced and realistic for workers. We prioritise workers spending time with children, visits being purposeful and capturing children's views about their lived experience.
We are delivering on our Edinburgh’s My Home strategy to ensure that if a child or young person can’t be cared for within their families, they continue to live within Edinburgh to ensure that they remain part of their local communities.
Our roles include
- Advanced Practitioners
- Aftercare Support Workers
- Children’s Services Practitioners
- Family Group Decision Making Co-Ordinators
- Residential Assistant Team Managers
- Residential Support Workers
- Residential Team Managers
- Social Workers
- Team Leaders