Assistant Director Strategic Programme Development and Change Leadership (Children's Social Work)

Assistant Director Strategic Programme Development and Change Leadership (Children's Social Work)

£106,944 - £114,014

Location: Flexible across the country

Cafcass is England's largest employer of children's social workers. We support c140,000 children in family court proceedings every year. Family Court Advisers (FCAs) and Children's Guardians are independently appointed by the court to offer advice and recommendations about what is safe and in children's future best interests.

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' in January 2024, there is always more to do to serve the best interests of children in public and private law proceedings across England.

Currently Cafcass is trialling and continuously evaluating new ways of working in private family law proceedings and is doing so in partnership with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Judiciary, Cafcass Cymru, HMCTS and local authority children's services in the pilot court areas. Whilst transforming the experiences of children and families in proceedings is a system-wide endeavour, the associated practice change for in excess of 1,700 Cafcass social workers is significant. It is for this reason that we are looking for an individual with the leadership skills to change a national system at the same time as influencing local practice with children and families. Substantial knowledge of private law proceedings is a requirement alongside a highly developed understanding of social work practice leadership in the family justice system.

Working to the Deputy Director Special Projects, the National Director of Operations and Chief Executive, the Assistant Director for Strategic Programme Development and Change Leadership will be responsible for the successful development of an effective and sustainable private law model that can be implemented in England over the next five years. The fundamental principles that the postholder will need to continue to integrate into the programme include, seeing children earlier in proceedings, presenting the court with a report about their experience of parental separation and conflict, earlier resolution of family difficulties and a safer response to domestic abuse where this is known or reported.

The post-holder will be responsible for leading the Cafcass programme in each region, through the preparation, transition and implementation phases - handing over local implementation to the senior local operational managers appropriately. The post holder will continue to provide mentoring, and oversight of fidelity to the model for a further period after the local handover.

The post-holder will work intensively with senior managers, practitioners and corporate colleagues within Cafcass as well as external partners to create the effective local partnerships required for a successful transition from the Child Arrangements Programme to a new model. This means working closely with the corporate management team, the operational management team, with local area teams, with children and families, the judiciary, senior managers in local authority children's social care services, HMCTS colleagues, and domestic abuse services to create the conditions for achieving the ambitious outcomes of a new private law model.

The post-holder will represent Cafcass nationally and locally, preparing and presenting performance and progress reports as required. They will be responsible for identifying and mitigating risks to programme delivery, escalating risks to the Chief Executive, the Programme Board and the Cafcass Board appropriately.

If you are you an experienced and senior leader of services for children and families with the energy and commitment to a lead major transformation and improvement programme, and our ambition for children resonates with you, this could be the role for you.

Key to being part of the Cafcass leadership team is inspirational, inclusive leadership, a commitment to continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of practice and to do this through developing collaborative partnerships across the family justice system. You will also have a track record as a senior leader in improving the quality and impact of social work practice, specifically in respect of the safety and welfare of children.

Directly accountable to a Deputy Director Special Projects the post-holder will be required to develop a close and collaborative working partnership with the Pathfinder project team in the Ministry of Justice. In addition, the post-holder will provide a Cafcass single point of contact for the Department for Education and Association of Directors of Children's Services.

Central to this role, is the leadership of system, process and practice change not only in respect of private law proceedings, but also public law and our social work practice systems more generally. The role will be reviewed during the next two years, with a view to assuming responsibility for other complex change and improvement programmes working across the organisation and the wider family justice system.

You will be expected to provide clear project direction and leadership that supports highly effective performance and that creates a culture of continuous improvement to sustain and stretch our achievements.

You will support and lead your team, manage competing demands and work effectively through others, while always retaining the strongest focus on exceptional experiences for children and families.

To be considered for this Assistant Director role, as well as being a social work qualified senior professional (with current SWE registration), you should have comprehensive relevant experience of working effectively as a member of a senior management team and successfully leading major improvement and change. You will also be able to demonstrate:

• Proven knowledge and extensive experience of best practice in safeguarding, child protection, public or private law for children and current practice in a large children's social work organisation.
• Proven experience of successfully leading and implementing complex innovation and change programmes.
• An ability to operate effectively and sensitively within a political and judicial environment, across multiple stakeholders in the family justice system, and to develop and maintain relationships that command respect, trust and confidence.
• Credibility in presenting at board or committee meetings, including the skill to write executive reports for public meetings and to work alongside board members, enhancing their effectiveness and oversight.
• 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.

As a national organisation, we are flexible on your location and of course it is reasonable to expect you will work from home a proportion of the time.

However, as a senior leader you will be expected to be visible and accessible to your team and wider stakeholders, as such you should expect to be attend relevant offices for key meetings. There may also be some additional travel and overnight stays in different parts of the country, including our offices in central London.

If you join us, you will be well-supported through induction, supervision, learning and performance review and career development.

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

The timeline for the recruitment to this role detailed below.

Closing date for applications: Sunday 5 th January 2025.

Initial interviews: Between 13 th and 17 th January 2025.

Panel interviews: 23 rd /24 th January 2025.

We also understand you may want to informally discuss the role with someone. If so, you are welcome to contact Sarah Parsons (Deputy Director Special Projects) via 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.