At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead diverse children's services and make a real impact on families' lives.
- Company: Barnardo's, a leading charity dedicated to supporting children and families.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible working, and the chance to drive meaningful change.
- Other info: Dynamic role with opportunities for professional growth and innovation.
- Why this job: Shape the future for children and families across multiple communities.
- Qualifications: Experience in managing children's services and strong leadership skills.
The predicted salary is between 40000 - 50000 £ per year.
Barnardo's is seeking a skilled and ambitious Children's Services Manager to lead a diverse and high-impact portfolio of services across the Midlands. This is a unique opportunity to oversee a broad range of provision supporting children, young people, and families with varying and often complex needs. The postholder will lead services including Warwickshire BASE, the Household Support Fund, Pathway to Potential, and Wolverhampton Power 2. In addition, the role includes oversight of Dudley Advocacy, as well as Sandwell SENDIASS and Warwickshire SENDIASS. This varied portfolio spans early help, targeted support, SEND services, advocacy, and community-based provision. It requires a confident and adaptive leader able to operate across different service models, funding streams, and local authority areas.
Key responsibilities include:
- Providing strategic and operational leadership across a multi-service, multi-area portfolio
- Ensuring high standards of safeguarding, quality, and performance across all services
- Leading and developing multidisciplinary teams delivering a range of interventions and support
- Overseeing service contracts, budgets and compliance within differing commissioning frameworks
- Building strong partnerships with local authorities and key stakeholders across Warwickshire, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell
- Driving service development, innovation and continuous improvement
- Ensuring the voices of children, young people and families shape delivery and design
About you:
- Significant experience managing diverse children's services, ideally across multiple local authority areas
- Strong leadership capability with experience of leading managers and dispersed teams
- Knowledge of SEND, advocacy, early help and family support services
- Experience of working in complex, multi-agency environments and managing external partnerships
- A track record of delivering against performance, quality and contractual requirements
- A passion for improving outcomes for children and tackling inequality
This is an exciting opportunity to lead a complex and rewarding portfolio, making a meaningful difference to children and families across multiple communities. The role requires a flexible and responsive approach to working across a wide geographical area, with regular travel to services and partner locations to maintain visibility, build relationships and support teams. At the same time, the postholder will be expected to work in an agile way, using virtual platforms effectively to lead, manage and collaborate across dispersed services. This balance of physical presence and remote working is key to ensuring strong leadership, consistent oversight and accessible support for staff, while maintaining efficiency and responsiveness across the portfolio.
Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.
Children's Services Manager - Midlands (23207) in Birmingham employer: BARNARDOS
Barnardo's is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment where passionate individuals can make a significant impact on the lives of children and families across the Midlands. With a strong commitment to employee development, Barnardo's fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation, providing opportunities for professional growth while ensuring that the voices of those they serve are at the heart of their services. The organisation values flexibility, allowing staff to balance in-person engagement with remote working, making it an ideal place for those seeking meaningful and rewarding employment.
