Chief Executive

Fifty years ago, Home-Start began with a simple yet powerful idea: parents supporting each other can transform lives. Today, we are a national movement of volunteers, staff, and partners, standing alongside families to ensure every child has the best possible start in life.

The last few years have placed increasing pressure on families. The cost-of-living crisis is forcing parents to make impossible trade-offs. The erosion of public services, the NHS and social care can leave little support around the earliest moment of a child s life. The need for our support has never been greater.

With a network of 177 independently governed local Home-Starts across the UK and a central supporting team at Home-Start UK, we are united in our mission to provide compassionate, non-judgemental support to families facing challenges such as isolation, poor mental health and financial pressures. Last year, the network supported 75,500 children in 58,850 families across the UK and British armed forces in Cyprus, with the help of our dedicated staff and nearly 8,000 volunteers.

While we are proud of the impact we make, the need for early years support remains vast, and we currently reach only a fraction of the families we aim to help. Our network is aligned by an ambitious federation-wide strategy to expand our reach and drive meaningful change. With this shared commitment, we aim to double the number of families we support and leverage innovative approaches to scale our impact, reaching 200,000 families a year.

About the role:

As the central organisation in the Home-Start federation, Home-Start UK exists to aid the Home-Start network, providing leadership, voice and quality assurance support to ensure the network has the capacity and resilience to sustainably stand alongside families and communities in times of challenge.

With our current Chief Executive moving on after a successful tenure, we are looking for an exceptional leader to take Home-Start UK into its next chapter. As Chief Executive, you will work collaboratively with our federated network, partners, and funders to enhance our profile, strengthen our voice, expand our reach and deepen our impact. You will help secure bold and sustainable growth and influence policy to ensure early years support remains a national priority.

This is a unique opportunity to lead a dynamic, values-driven organisation at a critical time for UK families. We seek a visionary, highly collaborative leader passionate about social change someone who excels at uniting people around a shared vision. You will be an inspiring advocate, strategic thinker, and skilled influencer and partnership builder, adept at navigating complexity and championing our movement. A personal commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusive relationships and work cultures is essential.

Diversity and Inclusion at Home-Start UK and in this recruitment:

Home-Start UK are committed to increasing the diversity of our leadership and creating an inclusive recruitment process that attracts a broad pool of talent, including candidates with lived experience relevant to Home-Start s mission. We appreciate this is an important role with a significant mandate, so are keen to consider how a mix of skills and intersectional insights can contribute to our mission - we are open to exploring new models of leadership structure to achieve this aim, including exploring Co-CEO models. So, if you think you have what it takes, but don t necessarily meet every single aspect of the person specification, please still apply we would love to explore the role further with you! For further details on EEDI in our organisation and in this recruitment, please see the full Appointment Brief.

If you are energised by the power of communities and committed to making a lasting difference for children and families, we would love to hear from you. For more information about the organisation, role and how to apply, please download the full appointment brief below.

Closing Date: 6 April 2025
People Beyond Screening Conversations: 10 April - 28 April 2025
Home-Start UK Panel Interviews:
First Stage: 7 May 2025
Second Stage: 16 May 2025