Jobs

Head of Service - Children’s Services    

Salary: £77,517 p.a. plus benefits

Closing date: 6 October 2024

We are 12 months into a two-year transformation journey to turn around our children’s services and looking for three new Heads of Service to join us.

We’ve successfully embedded new models of practice and launched a new Front Door service. We passionately believe in putting relationship-based practice at the centre of everything we do to improve outcomes for our children.

OFSTED has recognised our ‘steady and positive’ progress. We know things are changing for the better but there’s more to do.

We’re looking for brilliant people to join our journey.

Have you got what it takes to inspire our teams and give them the confidence that underpins really high performance? Are you committed to the welfare of children, and passionate about supporting them to achieve their potential?

Could you be one of our new Heads of Service?

About these roles

We have three exciting opportunities to join our children’s services department, and our turnaround journey, as:

• Head of Service Early Intervention, Early Years and Communities
• Head of Service Practice, Performance and Quality Assurance
• Head of Service Front Door and Assessment

Our new Heads of Service will directly shape the future of our children’s services, providing leadership across their respective specialist areas and with senior leaders and partners, developing and implementing strategies that are focused on improving outcomes for children and young people and their families now and for years to come.

These opportunities will suit people with exceptional leadership skills who are committed to the welfare of children. They offer the chance to work within an organisation that has an unwavering commitment to delivering services that support all our children to achieve their potential.

Head of Service, Early Intervention, Youth and Communities

Our Head of Service for Early Intervention, Youth and Communities will be responsible for ensuring we are working to provide help to vulnerable children and their families at the earliest opportunity rather than reactively providing interventions.

At the heart of this role is effective partnership working, ensuring that our work in children’s services is aligned with all our partners, particularly across health, education and our police colleagues.

If you’re looking for a challenge and have the skills to work effectively with all our partners – from social care to education – to ensure we are taking a multi-agency approach to keeping our children safe from harm this could be the perfect role for you.

Head of Service, Practice, Performance and Quality Assurance

Our Head of Service, Practice Performance and Quality Assurance is an exciting new role for Swindon overseeing all aspects of quality and practice across the service.

You’ll be someone who has experience of working effectively with partners, specifically those who are important to our improvement journey, and you’ll be open to external scrutiny and the value this has in supporting us to strengthen our practice.

We’re looking for someone who has a proven track record of developing and implementing comprehensive and effective quality assurance processes that give all our leaders a clear line of sight to practice.

As the guardian of quality and practice standards, you’ll hold the leadership team to account and set the agenda for quality, review and practice across Swindon, ensuring better outcomes for the vulnerable children and families we serve.

Head of Service, Front Door and Assessment

Our Front Door – Contact Swindon – provides support and guidance for parents, carers, members of the public, young people and professionals.

We receive up to 1,500 enquiries a month through Contact Swindon (there are around 50,000 children and young people in our borough) and our Head of Service will ensure that we are providing the right response, in a timely way, 24/7.

You will oversee all functions of Contact Swindon, including multi-agency safeguarding and our emergency duty service both in and out of hours, shaping and developing these services with colleagues. You’ll also play a key role in our safeguarding partnership.

You will need to be an exceptional team player with a track record of forming good strategic relationships – the success of our Front Door is linked to how we work with our partners across Swindon.

About us

Swindon is one of the South West’s best kept secrets - a thriving and diverse modern town full of hidden gems and ranked among the UK’s top places to live.

We’re a small authority with big ambitions – we’re striving to be both one of the best local authorities, and one of the most modern and forward thinking. We want to make Swindon the best place we can for those who live, work and visit here.

We passionately believe in putting relationship-based practice at the heart of everything we do. This is what helps us to provide high-quality support to families so that children can have the best start in life and grow up safe, healthy and able to achieve their potential.

The improvements we have introduced across our children’s services are already having a positive impact on our ability to provide consistent and unbroken support to children and young people. 

We are proud of the feedback from our social workers, who feel supported, and from OFSTED which has recognised our steady and positive progress.

In its latest report, OSFTED said: “The Family Safeguarding Model has become more embedded, and adult services workers have been recruited and trained in the model. This enables a joint approach, working alongside children’s social workers and practitioners to address safeguarding risks in child-in-need and child protection planning.

“The senior leadership team has a clear understanding of where improvement is needed and what needs to change.

 “Leaders are aware of the need to implement change at a pace quickly enough to make improvements for children and which allows such changes to become embedded in practice, allowing the workforce to engage positively in such a transformation.”

Why Swindon?

We know that for our children to thrive, we must create the very best work environment for our teams to thrive.

That is why we have invested in creating the very best work environment for teams to thrive. This includes smaller, more manageable caseloads, stable leadership teams, a genuine commitment to supervision and clear training and development opportunities

We offer competitive salaries, flexible working because balancing life and home is so important, generous holiday allowances, pension packages and free parking on our Swindon site.

We work as a close-knit team who support each other. This is a journey we’re on together.

Here’s what else sets us apart:

• Partnership working: We work closely with our strategic partners across Swindon to ensure our children and families get the right help, from the right teams, as quickly as possible
• Our Family Safeguarding Model: This model demonstrates our commitment to developing high quality systemic and relationship-based social work practice and encompasses our principles, involving:
• using motivational interviewing in our conversations and interactions with families
• working collaboratively and in partnership with our colleagues from other agencies
• providing support and interventions for adults where domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health may feature
• supporting staff to have time to reflect in group supervision sessions
• promoting staff to undertake direct work through the provision of direct work toolkits
• providing comprehensive staff training
• supporting managers to support staff
• providing a supporting performance management and QA framework so that we can hold ourselves to account, learn and continuously improve
• Career development and training: Our Social Work and Leadership Academy develops practitioners and leaders, providing a framework that can support colleagues at any level through their employment, whether a student on placement, a newly qualified worker in their first year, an experienced social worker or manager
• Flexible working
• Relocation allowance of up to £8,000 (eligibility criteria apply)
• Competitive salaries
• Free parking at our central Swindon campus
• A career average revalued earnings (CARE) pension scheme
• 31 days’ holiday (plus bank holidays) for 5 years or less service
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) - access to free and confidential information, support and guidance from a team of highly qualified professionals

Your next steps

For an informal discussion regarding the position, the organisation and the team structure, please contact Gwynne Rayns, Head of Transformation Children’s Services on 0747 2086213 or email GRayns@swindon.gov.uk

To find out more about the roles, our offer and to apply visit https://jobs.swindon.gov.uk/headofservice      

To apply please click the Apply Now link below.