Head of Practice (National Improvement Service)

Our strategic ambition is for every child in family law proceedings to have an exceptional experience, everywhere in the country and every time.

While we are proud that Ofsted judged us to be 'outstanding' earlier this year, there is always more to do to serve the best interests of children in public and private law proceedings across England. Our inspection outcome has energised us to keep getting better at what we do for children and families and the feedback from them tells us we are doing just that.

We are pleased to be recruiting for a Head of Practice within our National Improvement Service (NIS), which collectively plays a key role in helping to continually improve the quality and impact of practice to children and families.

You will join a well-established leadership team in the National Improvement Service, working closely with the existing Heads of Practice and Deputy Director for Performance and Quality Assurance, you will help lead an innovative and crucial service that makes a difference for children through quality assurance, learning, improvement and support.

This will include accountability for:

• Practice quality audits and analysis of performance and quality assurance at a national and regional level.
• Learning from Significant Incidents using a Child Record Review process.
• Co-ordination of National Learning and contributing to Child Safeguarding Review Panels.
• Learning from feedback.
• Leading the reporting of quality assurance of practice to Corporate Management Team Performance Boards.
• Providing monthly Quality Assurance and Impact Analysis and Reporting to the Operational Management Team.
• Oversight of 'ChildFirst; Development (this is our case management systemthat learns from practice to support the improvement of individuals).
• Developing reporting for Mid-year Reviews of Operational Service Area Improvement Plans.
• Ensuring that the improvement service provides timely commissioned service support to Operational Service Areas.

As you would expect, for such a key leadership role we have some key requirements:

• Significant post qualifying experience in a social work setting of working with children and families.
• Demonstrable experience of achieving positive outcomes for children through working in a family justice environment, including in a quality assurance / learning / improvement role.
• Evidence of professional development to support your progression into a managerial role.
• That you are an inspirational and motivated leader with high levels of resilience and management skills that encourage commitment from others and promote a positive and motivated organisational culture.
• A collaborative team worker who can build positive relationships and work effectively across boundaries and achieve results through others.
• Proven experience of managing staff, services and budgets at a senior level across a wide range of functions, including supervisory and/or practice management experience.

We are flexible on your location, and it is reasonable to assume you will predominantly work remotely. However, as a senior leader you should expect to attend relevant offices for key meetings, which may include some overnight stays in different parts of the country.

If you join us, you will be well-supported through induction, supervision, learning and performance review, whether you are already at this level of leadership or are taking your next career step.

We offer an attractive reward package, flexible working to achieve that important work/life balance, and a comprehensive programme of support to maintain your wellbeing at work that includes 4 'wellbeing days' in addition to a generous annual leave entitlement. You may also be able to bring your 'continuous service' with you, bringing further benefits.

We are an organisation valuing, promoting and prioritising equality, diversity and inclusion and we especially welcome applications from people with diverse backgrounds. The Chief Executive and Corporate Directors sponsor our objectives in this regard, listening to and encouraging feedback from families, children, our staff, and partners about how well we are doing in terms of understanding and celebrating uniqueness.

Next steps

We have set out an indicative timeline for the recruitment to this role, which we hope gives an idea of when you can expect to hear from us.

Closing date for applications: 31st August

Initial interview: w/c 7th September

Panel interviews: From 14th September

We also understand you may want to informally discuss the role with someone. If so, you are welcome to contact Barry Tilzey (Deputy Director – Performance and Quality Assurance) via barry.tilzey@cafcass.gov.uk providing your contact details and advising of the better times to contact you. However, if the closing date for applications is approaching, we encourage you to apply before the deadline and if you subsequently decide not to progress, your application can be withdrawn.

We look forward to hearing from you.