Director of Programmes

DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMES & POLICY

Salary: £70,000 FTE.

Position: Permanent, full time, open to flexible and hybrid working, with an expectation of regular travel to the national office in London and out to Practices or senior stakeholder meetings across England as needed.

Location: Coram Campus, Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ.

Reporting to: Chief Executive.

Line managing: Head of Practices, with an expectation of also line managing External Affairs & Communications Lead in due course.

Start date: April 2025.

THE ROLE

SHiFT’s Director of Programmes & Policy strategically and operationally directs the implementation and delivery of SHiFT through our SHiFT Practices and realises opportunities for SHiFT’s work to influence policy and practice reform. This is an exciting opportunity for someone driven by SHiFT’s Mission to break the destructive cycle of crime for children and young people, with the tenacity and skill to deliver innovation and translate learning from it to stimulate systems change within complex, multi-agency operational environments that include Children’s Social Care and Youth Justice. The Director of Programmes & Policy role is a new role for SHiFT, which has emerged because of our growth and the need to increase SHiFT’s strategic and operational capabilities. By welcoming a new senior leader, we want to ensure that we have enough capacity and capability to consistently deliver excellence through our Practices and to realise opportunities for continued innovation, growth, and influencing consistent with our mission to shift systems.

SHiFT’s Director of Programmes & Policy will obsess about the ‘what’ of our practice, holding overall responsibility for stewarding a SHiFT Practice from inception to scoping, mobilisation and launch, and then into effective delivery of each 18-month Programme cycle as we ‘infiltrate’ Host Organisations with the aim of shifting systems. Working differently with children and young people caught up in, or at risk of, cycles of crime, and doing so from an ‘insider-outsider’ position (where all our Practice colleagues are employed by public services rather than directly by SHiFT), is complex work. You and your small team of Practice Development Leads, led by our Head of Practices, will need to carefully hold the tension between consistency and flexibility, getting and staying closely alongside organisations that host SHiFT Practices as ‘critical friends’ to ensure that the SHiFT Commitments are met as we grow, learn and innovate. You will need to be front footed and confident in using data to identify opportunities for improvement in implementation and design, sharing insights to inform the organisation’s strategic direction as part of SHiFT’s Senior Leadership Team and feeding them into relevant governance forums including SHiFT’s Practice Committee and Board of Trustees. You’ll be building on some good foundations for the programmatic aspect of your role, but we expect strengthening and embedding these foundations to be the focus of your work for the first year in post, above the policy focused aspects of this role.

The ‘how’ of SHiFT’s practice is led by our Director of Practice & Learning. ​​They are SHiFT’s clinical lead and Designated Safeguarding Lead, and ​​​​are focused intensively on ensuring SHiFT’s practice model is put into action and that SHiFT’s desired outcomes for children and young people are achieved. They are custodian and ‘developer in chief’ of SHiFT’s practice model, leading on practice quality and realising opportunities for improvement and innovation. This includes responsibility for the design, ​​iteration, and implementation of SHiFT’s learning and development programme, to which you and your team contribute. SHiFT’s Director of Practice & Learning provides regular clinical supervision to the national practice team and works closely and directly with SHiFT Guides and Practice Development Leads in Practices. Close effective working between SHiFT’s Director of Practice & Learning and our Director of Programmes & Policy will be critical to our shared success. Since the Director of Programmes & Policy role is a new role for SHiFT, you can expect to work collaboratively with SHiFT’s Director of Practice & Learning to create and evolve ways of working that ensure consistency and alignment between what we do in practice and how we do it. Consistent with SHiFT’s organisational culture, we want the relationship between the Director of Practice & Learning and Director of Programmes & Policy to be high support and high challenge.

As the programmatic aspects of your responsibilities become secure, you can expect opportunities for strategic and operational leadership in relation to SHiFT’s policy and practice influencing to increase. Specific areas for focus in this work will crystallise, in part, through the development of SHiFT’s next strategy (development work running throughout 2025 with a new strategy launched in early 2026). In the more immediate term, SHiFT’s Director of Programmes & Policy will be expected to work closely with our External Affairs & Communications Lead and Chief Executive to identify and realise impactful opportunities for sharing SHiFT’s approach and eviden​​ce and developing our activities to influence systems change.

To thrive in this Director of Programmes & Policy role you will be flexible, comfortable with ambiguity and iterative working, and have exceptional problem solving and relationship building skills. You’ll bring substantial experience of operational and strategic leadership in contexts relevant to SHiFT’s work and have a proven track record of developing services and ensuring they are delivered at pace, and to a consistently excellent standard. You’ll have credibility and confidence in working with stakeholders relevant to policy and practice reform, including civil servants and senior practice leaders, in systems relevant to SHiFT’s work (e.g. Youth Justice, Children’s Social Care, policing, and education). Colleagues would say that you’re a person who gets things done, loves data and learning, sweats the small stuff, and is great at bringing people with you.

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

SHiFT is actively committed to the eradication of discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, age, marital status and on the basis of socio-economic circumstances.  We are determined for SHiFT to be a diverse and inclusive organisation that is enriched by a wide range of backgrounds, expertise, and experiences. We want to build a workplace that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included, and involved.

As a charity working within youth justice, we are keenly aware of the over-representation of children who identify as Black, Brown or Mixed Heritage within the youth justice system. Challenging racism is a key priority for SHiFT. In seeking to achieve this, we understand the value and importance of recruiting and retaining a workforce which represents the children we seek to support. We therefore particularly encourage and welcome applications from people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and we recognise that this group is currently under-represented within our national team.

THE RESPONSIBILITES

Your principal responsibilities will be to: 

• Ensure the consistent implementation and ongoing fidelity of SHiFT through our Practices, as is reflected in our Framework / the SHiFT Commitments and SHiFT Ways. This includes leading:
• the scoping, mobilisation, and launch of new Practices; and
• the clear, consistent, high-quality operation of 18-month SHiFT Programme cycles, underpinned by high support and high challenge partnerships with organisations that host SHiFT Practices (to date, all Local Authorities).
• Implement and (working closely with the Director of Practice & Learning) iterate SHiFT’s quality assurance and quality improvement processes to ensure:
• there is clear line of sight to the activities of our Practices and their impacts for children, young people and families, as well as on influencing systems change; and
• SHiFT has a clear evidenced understanding of what’s working well and why and where and how to learn and make improvement.
• Plan and coordinate local, regional, and national practice facing activities, including the delivery of SHiFT’s learning and development programme, and impactful opportunities for collaboration and learning across SHiFT Practices.
• Identify and realise opportunities for improvement in the operation of SHiFT Practices, reflecting learning as we grow in the development of our approach and processes to maximise SHiFT’s opportunities for reach and influence.
• Translate insight from SHiFT’s ideas in action to inform and influence wider policy and practice change in ways consistent with SHiFT’s approach and Mission.
• Identify and realise impactful opportunities for developing SHiFT’s activities and sharing our approach and evidence of impact to influence systems change.
• Contribute to whole organisation strategic development and operational effectiveness as a member of SHiFT’s Senior Leadership Team, reporting regularly into SHiFT’s Board of Trustees and Practice Committee.

YOU WILL BRING

Beliefs and alignment:

• The belief that all people are capable of change and that a relationship with a skilled practitioner can be a powerful driver of this.
• The belief that young people who display behaviours linked to offending can be supported so that they cease offending and meaningfully contribute to society.
• An alignment to a culture of high trust and high expectation where there are fewer rules, high levels of accountability, and a need for excellent performance from the entire team.
• An alignment to SHiFT’s Values – ambition, courage, flexibility, and tenacity – which reflect the ‘Breaking Cycles’ ingredients (the foundations on which SHiFT is built).
• A preparedness to challenge the status quo and be positively disruptive in the pursuit of higher standards even when this is uncomfortable.
• Dynamism, tenacity, and determination – you are someone who does not give up until you succeed. You have a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Curiosity and a commitment to learning – comfortable in a fast-paced and aspirational ‘start-up’ context, and as part of a team that is committed to ongoing reflection, adaptation, and improvement.

Experience, knowledge, and skills:

• Knowledge and experience of dynamic risk management is desirable.
• Experience developing and embedding audit and oversight processes is desirable.
• Experience of contract management is desirable.
• Experience leading geographically dispersed teams is desirable.
• Experience developing and selling policy change recommendations is desirable.

Qualifications and background:

• Previous senior leadership role.
• Previous experience of senior programmatic / operational leadership, ideally working with individuals with vulnerabilities.
• Right to work in the UK.
• This post is subject to a police check of previous criminal convictions with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).