The Family Support and Advice Line undertakes the front door activities for Children's Services.
The operating hours for this post are 8am – 6.15pm and the post holder will be required to work 18.5 hours per week, by undertaking a 9.25 hour shift, over 2 working days per typical working week. The working pattern will be week one, working Thursday and Friday, and week two working Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Family Support and Advice Line Manager will be responsible for the line management of the Consultant Social Workers and Advisors.
See Job Description for full details.
Service Information
This is an exciting time for Dorset Children's Services where innovation and creative practice are celebrated and encouraged. As part of the wider changes in Children's Services in Dorset, and nationally, through the Families First Partnership, where Dorset were at wave one Pathfinder for this transformation of Children’s Service. We continue to work with Professor David Thorpe through Public Digital and their team to ensure our Front Door arrangements, continue to make the right decisions at an early stage, first time for our children and young people. You can read more about our approach at Digital Transformation for Children's Social Care - Public Digital and our specific journey Supporting Dorset Council’s children’s services to strengthen their use of the conversational model in their front door — Public Digital.
We know that if the right decisions are made for children early in their needs’ journey, we will achieve better outcomes that are more likely to be sustained through childhood and into adulthood.
Dorset Children's Services provide the best service to our partner agencies, as well as to Dorset's children and their families, through a high functioning front door. During our recent Outstanding Ofsted inspection (March 2025) the Family Support and Advice Line received the following praise.
“Children referred to the Family Support and Advice Line, Dorset’s front door, receive a timely and effective response. For the vast majority of children, decision-making is appropriate. Children’s levels of need and risk are considered carefully to decide the right course of action. Social workers robustly analyse all risks, such as child exploitation, gang violence and domestic abuse. The need for parents to consent to referrals is well understood and consent is routinely sought, although overridden when necessary to ensure children’s safety. Children and families benefit from the same effective response when concerns are raised during evenings and weekends.” (ILACS Dorset March 2025)
The service no longer takes written requests for support and the managers, consultant social workers, family workers and advisors work together to manage the front door to all of Dorset Council Children's Services. Requests for support, enquiries and immediate concerns for welfare are made via telephone.
Calls from children, parents/carers, family members and partner agencies are received via telephone from 8am to 10pm Monday to Sunday. The Family Support and Advice Line is also the Out of Hours service for Dorset Children’s Services.
We provide vital cross agency checks for those children with greater needs and where there is reasonable cause to suspect significant harm, working closely with colleagues from health and the police.
The front door to Children's Services is a window to Dorset Council and all staff working as part of the service will be expected to champion the Dorset values of Respect, Openness, Together, Accountability and (probably most importantly for a front door) Curiosity. All staff in the service will have a strong commitment to ensuring Dorset children thrive.