Assistant Director Children

**Job Title: Assistant Director - Children and Young Peoples Services**:

- _
**Salary: £38,325 to 43,050 pa depending on experience**

**Report to**: Director of Operations

**Responsible for**:Children’s services teams

**Main Purpose**:

- _ The purpose of the role is to lead the development of services for Children and Young People living in refuges and other safe accommodation in Hertfordshire and Essex project managing service development including the contribution of contracted academics, other specialist children and young people’s services operating locally and crucially current and past children and parents who have used our refuge services.

To ensure that our services for children and young people in refuge and other safe accommodation are based on a rigorous needs assessment which including full consideration of intersectional needs and other factors including the wishes of children and young people, To ensure that the menu of services to be offered by the refuge services is evidence based, coherent with what is provided within the community and that there are strong pathways of support for children that will follow them into the community on resettlement.

To provide leadership to our children’s services team and manage the implementation of redesigned services and associated monitoring systems which will enable us to evaluate outcomes and make the changes to service design as required to maximise impact

**Key Responsibilities**:

- _Corporate

1. To maintain and demonstrate a commitment to the Organisation’s vision and values and strategic aims and objectives.
2. To maintain high standards of professionalism and keep abreast of current legislation, standards, best practice and maintain a focus of continuous improvement.
3. To maintain knowledge of the Organisation’s operating environment.

**Main Tasks**

**1. Service Design**

Project manage the development and implementation of evidence-based services for
Children and Young People living in refuge and safe accommodation. You will:

- Establish and lead a multi-agency project management team
- Commission and manage the Children and Young people’s research project, namely the needs assessment and literature review undertaken by an academic institution.
- Co-ordinate the mapping of relevant community based services for children and young people
- Produce a directory of community based services which includes clear articulation of what can be offered to support Children and Young People in or on leaving refuge, including details of how to refer, eligibility thresholds and criteria
- Ensure that the view of children, young people and parents are effectively elicited and included within the service design
- Identify the gaps in provision between the community offer and the needs and wishes of children and young people and develop a menu of options to be made available to children and young people in refuge
- Ensure that in the design of the service the intersectional needs of children and young people are taken into account and that equity, equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of the services we will offer

**2. Delivery of services and the Leadership and development of the Children and Young **People’s workforce**
- Ensure that all contractual obligations are met in the delivery of the children and young people’s services delivered under Local Authority contract or through charitable funding sources, monitoring activity and providing regular reports
- Develop strong partnership working arrangements with the key organisations delivering services to children and young people in the areas we operate and with services further afield as relevant to the needs of children and young people in the service
- Take overall responsibility for the management of the existing Children and Young People’s workforce
- As necessary, working closely with the Designated Safeguarding lead for the specific area, advocate at the highest level where the staff team have been unable to secure satisfactory results e.g., in securing a school place within a reasonable timeframe and maintain a current assessment of the barriers faced by Children and Young People in safe accommodation.
- Recruit additional staff as required where there are vacancies on fixed term, self - employed or agency contracts pending the redesign of the service and the agreement of the establishment and skill mix required to deliver the future services.
- Work closely with Safer Places Training Subsidiary, Brighter Futures to identify existing training suitable for the workforce and in the development of an accredited training packages for staff working with children and young people in safe accommodation
- Ensure that existing members of the Children and Young Peoples services teams are regularly briefed and able to contribute their views to the development of the new service
- Develop and roll out a comprehensive implementation plan for the new service arrangements inc