Assistant Head of Service (Residential Services) - FTC 12 Months

We are seeking an experienced, inspirational and forward-thinking Assistant Head of Service to play a pivotal role in the leadership and development of our expanding residential children's service.

Working in partnership with the Head of Service and Responsible Individual, you will provide visible, effective and values-driven leadership across our residential children's homes, helping to ensure that children and young people receive safe, nurturing and high-quality care that enables them to thrive.

This is a strategic and operational leadership position with responsibility for overseeing a portfolio of children's homes and supporting Registered Managers to deliver excellent practice, strong regulatory compliance and outstanding outcomes. You will drive service performance, quality assurance and continuous improvement, ensuring services operate in line with relevant legislation, regulations, quality standards and organisational policies.

As the service continues to grow, you will play a key role in shaping and developing provision, translating strategic priorities into clear operational plans and ensuring robust governance, risk management and performance oversight. You will champion a culture of accountability, learning and excellence, supporting managers to build high-performing teams that place children and young people's needs at the heart of everything they do.

The successful candidate will deputise for the Head of Service when required, exercising delegated authority and providing confident leadership across the service. This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious leader who is passionate about improving the lives of children and young people and has the drive to help shape the future of residential care.

If you are an experienced residential care leader with a strong track record of service improvement, regulatory compliance and developing high-performing teams, we would love to hear from you.

We have been rated as ‘Good’ by Ofsted, following a 2023 inspection. This is a fantastic achievement for Birmingham Children's Trust, with many positive highlights focusing on areas including the quality of staff leadership, partnership working, safeguarding and corporate parenting.

This is a hybrid role based in Birmingham so you must have the correct right-to-work documents to work in the UK. Sadly, we do not support those who require sponsorship.

About you:

• Detailed knowledge of children’s residential care legislation, the Children’s Homes Regulations 2015, quality standards and associated statutory guidance.
• Significant experience in Residential Children’s Services
• Strong knowledge of Ofsted regulations and standards. Understanding of inspection, quality assurance, performance management, workforce planning, risk management and service improvement.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding, corporate parenting, trauma-responsive care, children’s rights and the factors affecting children in care.
• Experience leading multi-site teams, demonstrating excellent leadership skills.
• Ability to coach, supervise and develop managers and build a consistent, accountable leadership culture.
• Strong and effective communication skills as you'll be engaging with a diverse range of colleagues, customers and stakeholders.
• Substantial successful management experience in children’s residential care or a closely related regulated children’s service.
• A recognised management or leadership qualification, or evidence of equivalent senior management development.

Onboarding Process

Please note part of our onboarding process, the successful candidate will be required undergo a series of background checks with Experian Including Experian DBS, Right to Work, and Digital ID verification. These are essential pre-employment requirements.

We will require a FULL employment history to ensure we are compliant with Schedule 2 requirements.

Our Benefits

• A generous annual leave package of 30 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days after 5 years of service and 35 days after 10 years of service.
• Free on-site parking at our offices on One Avenue Road (Aston) and Lifford House (Stirchley). We also provide onsite electric car charging ports which are free to use!
• Full access to our amazing internal employee benefits scheme including, Occupational Health services, Rewards Schemes, Benefits discounts (including the Blue Light Card), Health & Fitness and Personal Wellbeing support and much more!
• Flexible and hybrid working policy - we are well adapted to a hybrid model of working which includes a combination of time spent in the office and at home and we offer a variety of working patterns.
• Pension Scheme - You will receive a generous local government career average pension scheme in line with the local government pension scheme.

Don't miss out! We reserve the right to close this vacancy early once we have received the required number of applications. To avoid disappointment, please submit your application and supporting statement at the earliest opportunity.