Head of Service - Single Point of Access (SPA)

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About the role

This is a rare opportunity to join a well established service. As the Head of Service you will provide stability, leadership and management of our Single Point of Access (SPA). This will include maintaining and developing working relationships with partner agencies, ensuring robust processes in the SPA that provide timely and effective decision making, reviewing the MASH process and monitoring the performance within the service. You will work with other managers to achieve the best partnerships to support the work as well as staff performance with the expectation to set, review, praise and address performance across the service area. Incorporated into the SPA is the lead for developing our responses to contextual safeguarding as well as the return interview service responding to children who go missing.

Within this role, you will be expected to:

• Provide operational leadership for SPA, the Head of Service will have a major contribution to make to the delivery of the services within the wider SPA service area.
• Strengthen, develop and improve partnerships with partners and community leads includes delivering presentations, training and development opportunities to the wider partnerships and commissioning councils.
• Manage the Contextual Safeguarding lead in continuing to improve responses across the partnerships.
• Pre-Mace Chair, deputising and supporting the chairs of strategic MACE panels.
• Oversee performance management, staffing and HR processes.

For further information about this role, please contact Sara Doyle by email sara.doyle@achievingforchildren.org.uk for an informal discussion.

About you

To be successful in this role you will be an outstanding senior leader with proven experience and competence in managing and leading our SPA, the front door into children's services. You will be highly motivated and competent in developing and maintaining partnerships, working within a MASH environment. You will have a working knowledge about contextual safeguarding and children who go missing and a strong desire to further develop our policies and responses to exploitation of children from a partnership perspective.

Key requirements for this role include:

• Extensive experience of leadership and management within children's social care.
• Current and working knowledge of contextual safeguarding.
• Strong experience of chairing/monitoring complex multi agency and multi-professional meetings.
• Knowledge of relevant statute, theory and legal frameworks that informs practice delivery.
• Confident and experienced in building strong partnerships, maintaining relationships and co-producing solutions to challenges.
• Proven ability to effectively use data, intelligence and evidence to create meaningful insights.

About our benefits

We are focused on creating a positive supportive environment, where you will have access to a really wide range of resources, as well as a competitive salary and all the perks to enable hybrid working. In AfC you will also have access to:

• 29 days annual leave, increasing to 33 days after 2 years and 35 days after 4 years with an additional day off in your birthday month(Or for term term workers, your leave entitlement consists of the non-working periods in your contract.)
• Tailored induction sessions commencing on the date you start working for AfC
• Local Government salary and pension scheme (LGPS or Teachers Pension)
• Flexible working options - helping to keep a good work life balance
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme
• A range of staff benefits and discounts
• An excellent learning and development offer to support your career pathway

To find out about all of the breadth of benefits of working for Achieving for Children click here . For our social work offer click here .

Important Information

Start dates: Achieving for Children have set start dates meaning successful candidates join on a set date in each month. Candidates are advised to prepare for this should a job offer be accepted to ensure eligible continuous service is not affected.

Right to work: The UK has introduced a new points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance.

Equality: We particularly welcome applications from sections of the community who are currently underrepresented within our teams. Achieving for Children are committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds bring important and positive contributions and can improve the way we deliver services. We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer.

Safeguarding: We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

For more information about AfC: Drop in and meet Regina on the first Wednesday of every month at Civic Centre, Twickenham.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received. Therefore, it is strongly advised that you complete and return your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.