Program Head

Location: Hybrid – Based in Leeds or London

BookTrust is the UK’s largest children’s reading charity. We get millions of children reading, regularly and by choice – especially those from low-income families or vulnerable backgrounds. At BookTrust, we know that children who read regularly are happier and healthier, they form stronger bonds, they are more creative and enjoy more success in life. Equally importantly, we know that something profound happens in those magical moments when an adult and child share a story together. Reading supports bonding, stability, identity, social and emotional growth and attainment. In many ways, sharing stories is a protective factor against the adversity that some children experience, helping them feel secure and loved.

We deliver our mission through evidence-based interventions that reach over 1.4 million children and families a year, with a strong focus on the early years. Our carefully selected books and well-researched programmes are delivered by a network of over 7,000 local partners, bringing the magic of reading to children in every community in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We work with every local authority across England and Wales, as well as health visitors, schools, libraries, social workers and early years workers. We also have an excellent and increasingly diverse community of children’s authors and illustrators, and committed and expert support from publishers.

Our Work for Children from Vulnerable Family Backgrounds

Our new strategy 2025‑30 has big ambitions for the development and growth of our work to support children from vulnerable family backgrounds. We are aiming to grow our reach of children from vulnerable backgrounds, with impact‑led support, to 60,000 per year. As part of our large‑scale delivery, we already support over 10,000 children from vulnerable family backgrounds through our longstanding Letterbox Club programme, and our newly developed Story Explorers programme. We have a delivery partnership with the charity Kinship and we are building new relationships with a wide range of partners in local government and in voluntary and independent organisations, where we see potential to build awareness of the benefits of reading, to support practitioners and reach more children and families.

We are generously supported by the Mohn Westlake Foundation for our development work in this space and we think there is scope for more funding partnerships to support our work with children from vulnerable backgrounds. We have great foundations to build on, big ambitions to do more, and strong evidence that our work can make a transformative difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in our society. What we do has never mattered more – or been more needed. BookTrust is united by our commitment to this mission, and the opportunity to make a real difference.

You will be excited by an opportunity that is genuinely a one‑off, without any template, and you will have experience of shaping a new role. You will be a strong systemic thinker, able to pull together multiple interconnected strands into a coherent and compelling programme and develop a long‑term plan for delivery. You will be an excellent people person, bringing energy to internal leadership and a focus to our external activity. You may well have worked in a national organisation, and have experience of the strategic development and delivery of services in a local context. You might have developed new services for a national charity or delivered a national policy initiative. Your experience might be from the charity sector, from a management consultancy or from government – but you will understand the public sector delivery context for this work.

Job Purpose

The Head of Programme for Children from Vulnerable Backgrounds will lead and coordinate the development, long‑term planning and delivery of our programme of work to bring the benefits of reading to children from vulnerable family backgrounds. This includes existing programmes (Letterbox Club and Story Explorers) as well as new activity. This work spans the organisation – from research and impact, design and innovation, through partnership development, growth planning, communications, profile‑raising and income generation – and requires strong collaborative working to draw on skills and capacity in all these areas.

The Head of Programme for Children from Vulnerable Backgrounds will work with teams across BookTrust to provide long‑term strategic direction and to coordinate existing activity, driving forwards our progress, and championing our work for children from vulnerable family backgrounds. They will help us to balance customer and design priorities, marketing, communication and profile‑raising needs. This role will report to the Director of Partnerships (who is a member of the ELT) and also work closely with one of the Co‑CEOs. There are currently multiple roles across BookTrust whose work contributes in whole or significant part to our objectives in this space. We are looking for a leader who can lead a virtual team across different functions, problem solve and design new ways of working, and lead and embed change and transformation.

Core Responsibilities

• Increase impact across our work for children from vulnerable family backgrounds
• Defining choices and priorities for activity in this area, and holding clear certainty of focus – to enable planning of long‑term learning activity.
• Working closely with our Head of Research and Impact who leads our learning activity, and our Head of Design, Development and Innovation who translates insight into programme design.
• Growing our understanding of the policy landscape and what this means for our work – so that we can respond to how the system is changing.

• Develop new programmes and ways of working
• Planning and prioritising across multiple opportunities for development, supporting strong and transparent decision‑making.
• Supporting the development of child, carer, practitioner and customer journeys.
• Identifying new customer groups and ways that our existing/adaptations to our products could support them.
• Facilitating and championing our focus on co‑creation.
• Working closely with the Head of Design, Development and Innovation who leads our programme design and maintains our cross‑organisational development plan.
• Lead the delivery of Letterbox Club and Story Explorers to existing customers.
• Manage existing relationships with virtual schools and other customers.
• Develop and lead delivery of a more holistic approach to our support for customers and partners – spotting opportunities emerging from existing relationships and wrapping support from other programmes (research, books expertise, Bookstart connections) around what we do.

• Develop new markets and delivery pathways to grow reach
• Develop a growth plan to deliver the expansion we are aiming for in the next five years, based on market and customer understanding.
• Understand upstream developments – and how these will affect funding and regulation in the future.
• Develop supply chain, systems and data to meet the needs of growing numbers and variety of customers and beneficiaries.

• Raise the profile of reading for children from vulnerable family backgrounds
• Being a visible and credible presence in the policy and practice landscape for this sector.
• Establishing and supporting a strategic steering group and a co‑production practice group to help steer our work.
• Advising and supporting long‑term planning for profile‑raising activity that uses evidence, relationships (including with authors and illustrators) and practice examples to raise our profile and maintain our presence as a key voice in this sector.

• Grow the income we need
• Understanding and advising on the implications of current funding requirements and constraints (e.g. for virtual schools) and navigating changes.
• Support commercial leads to develop, hone and refresh our trading strategy for this work – though sector and partner insight and through understanding of near and longer‑term landscape.
• Working with income generation and commercial leads to develop a strategic plan for securing and maintaining revenue to support our work in this space from trading our programmes and also from statutory and corporate sources and from trusts and foundations.

These responsibilities are also supported by the work of teams across the wider organisation, and the Head of Programme for Children from Vulnerable Backgrounds will hold joint accountability for much of this work with other leaders. BookTrust is a relatively small and highly interconnected organisation, requiring true commitment to collaboration.

In addition to responsibilities relating to the delivery of the above requirements, the postholder will need to be committed to their own personal development; promote BookTrust and its vision and values in all activities, both internally while carrying out duties and externally with stakeholders and the general public; and carry out all duties in line with BookTrust policies and procedures, being prepared to undertake additional reasonable duties as required.

Other Information

The role could be based in either BookTrust’s Leeds or London offices, with an average of 8 days every month to be spent in the office or in face‑to‑face commitments. The position will require regular travel to BookTrust office bases and to visit and engage with partners and other organisations as needed.

Reporting Line

The postholder will report to the Director of Partnerships, with matrixed accountability also to one of the Co‑CEOs. There will be a 6‑month probation period. Annual holiday allowance of 28 days, excluding public holidays. Pension scheme, with 7% employer contribution.