Council Leader, Cllr Roger Stone and Cabinet Member for Children and Young People's Services, Cllr Shaun Wright, were invited to join social workers in the Wentworth South area on their visits to homes to get an insight into the work that is carried out with families and carers across the borough.

The visit included a meeting with social work staff and home visits to foster carers as well as families which have needed the support of social work teams.

It was all part of the borough's campaign to encourage more social workers to work in Rotherham to help develop the service in the borough.

Among the initiatives running in Rotherham are:

• A dedicated website for social work recruitment giving details of the opportunities available - www.workingsidebyside.co.uk
• Involvement in the Children's Workforce Development Council's (CWDC) "Return to Social Work" scheme, with Rotherham leading a regional approach to attracting former social workers back into the profession.
• The rolling out the CWDC Newly Qualified Social Work Scheme, with the University of Sheffield, to help support the transition from student to qualified worker
• The CWDC "Step up to Social Work" scheme, where graduates will be recruited and trained on a employment based Masters degree level course to qualify as a Social Worker.
• The development of Rotherham's "Grow Your Own Team Manager" programme, to be delivered and accredited by one of our University partners, to ensure all our future managers have the right level of knowledge and skills to meet the challenging nature of the post
• Workers operate in teams which are located with colleagues from other agencies such as health to ensure close co-operation between services working with families.

Cllr Stone said: "It's really important when we are making decisions about providing and funding services that we understand the challenges that both families and our staff face. We also have a responsibility to young people in our care as their Corporate Parents so this visit has been incredibly helpful in gaining that insight.

"Social work is a challenging but rewarding role and we are making sure that those workers who come to join us in Rotherham get the best possible support and help so they can provide the highest quality service."

Cllr Shaun Wright, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, added: "Social work in Rotherham is based around the two principles of the child being at the centre of everything and agencies working in partnership and we've seen that in action today.

"A lot of the work that is done by social workers is never seen by the general public but it is vital to ensure that families who need that extra support can receive it.

"We have a dedicated and highly professional group of social workers in Rotherham but like other areas across the country we need more. That's why we are working hard to do that through the launch of this new recruitment campaign as well as providing more support to our existing workers."

A number of changes to the Children and Young People's service have been introduced recently including providing more admin support for social workers and improving the IT access those workers have to free up as much time as possible for them to work with families.

In addition the borough is also recruiting more foster carers to join the dedicated group of carers who provide care and support for children who, for whatever reason, can't stay with their families. More than 30 new carers have been recruited recently but more are always required.

Cllr Wright said: "Our foster carers do an excellent job and we really appreciate the hard work that they do in caring for their children and involving them in their families' lives either on a short term or longer term basis."

For more details on social work recruitment in Rotherham visit http://www.workingsidebyside.co.uk/

For more details on fostering visit the website at http://www.fosterinrotherham.co.uk/