Member Job Opportunity: St Christopher's - Head of Children’s Residential Services

Location: Children's Homes London
Salary: £52,025 per annum
Contract Type: Permanent
Specific Hours: 37.5 hours per week
Closing Date: 19 March 2023

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Hybrid work with some travel across the London Region

Our vision is for every child and young person to be safe, loved and happy, to achieve their potential and have a bright future.

St Christopher's is a leading charity for children and young people. We are proud of our history of providing fostering, children's homes and innovative leaving care services across the UK & Isle of Man.  We have a passionate commitment to our young people, placing them at the centre of everything we do.  We provide positive life experiences for young people who are unable to sustain a placement in their parental or foster home.

We are an equal-opportunity employer keen to develop an inclusive workforce where people feel they belong.  We hope to attract applications from under- represented groups, including people from different cultures, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, disabilities, religions, faith, sex, orientation, childcare responsibilities, and gender-diverse identities.

About this Role 
We have an ambitious growth programme for residential services in our London region and we are now looking for the right person to drive this forward, as well as overseeing our established services in the region. As the locality Head of Children’s Residential, you will be leading on all aspects of supporting existing and developing new Children’s Homes and other services from sourcing properties to delivering highly functioning new Homes.

The successful candidate will ideally:

• Hold a professional qualification such as Social Work Degree / DipSW / CQSW or other level 4/5 qualification relevant to working with children and young people and/or recognised management/business qualification at level 4 or 5
• Experience of successfully growing residential services from sourcing properties to successful delivery of new homes functioning to a high standard.
• Have demonstrable knowledge of current developments and good practice in residential childcare
• Have the skills, ambition and drive to grow and maintain excellent services that meet their financial targets.
• Possess the leadership skills to build and lead a team of professional staff
• Have extensive experience of managing complex and challenging behaviour
• Be able to bring flexible and creative solutions to risk management

In return we offer:

• Salary £52,025
• A friendly working environment, a fun, open and honest culture.
• 25 days holiday rising to 27 days after 3 years’ service, plus Bank Holidays, pro-rata.
• Industry Leading training programme including Young People’s right and participation, CSE, empowerment, mental health, Social Pedagogy.
• Contributory pension scheme, Enhanced Maternity and Company Sick Scheme.
• BUPA Employee Assistance Programme, offering counselling, financial advice and legal support.
• Interest-free season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme.
• Discount shopping scheme, to save money at hundreds of retailers across the UK.
• Discretionary Funding Training Programs.
• Employee Awards based on performance and length of service.
• Fantastic opportunities to develop your career

Recruitment Process
St Christopher’s is committed to the safeguarding of all children and young people in our care including the principals of Safer Recruitment. During the recruitment process you will be expected to complete an online application form to ensure we capture essential information to meet legislation, best practice and vetting requirements to assess your suitability to work with children and young people.

Applicants will ideally already be on the DBS Update Service; if this is not the case St Christopher's will carry out a DBS (police) check prior to your start date.

Your application must include a supporting statement addressing the criteria given in the Person Specification.

For the full Job Description for this role and more detail about what will be required, please click here

We advise to apply as soon as possible as applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

For assistance during the application process, please contact [email protected]

St Christopher’s Fellowship has a minimum age requirement of 21 for roles working directly with children and young people in our residential and semi-independent Homes.

Full details and application documents here