JOB TITLE: Head of Independent Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children Support Service

DIRECTORATE: Services

LOCATION: Flexible

SALARY: £47,665 - 51,770 (plus £3,779 London weighting where applicable)

HOURS: 28

The Children's Services are responsible for delivering services to separated refugee children. The service also leads on raising the profile of their clients and advocates on their behalf. Supporting this work, the service also promotes good practice to statutory and voluntary agencies and supports the Council Advocacy and Engagement Team to influence government to improve policy decisions and policy making at a national level.

Job
The Head of Independent Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children Support Service is responsible for the overall leadership and management of the contract with the Home Office, ensuring that safe, effective, quality services are delivered consistently to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children seeking asylum across England.
The postholder will be the strategic lead for this service, communicating its vision and purpose to internal and external stakeholders. They will take a strategic, pioneering and innovative approach to transforming the experience of unaccompanied children seeking asylum. They will develop relationships with organisations supporting unaccompanied children to promote understanding of their needs and enable our services to work together to collectively meet their needs.

Person specification

• Appreciation of the experiences, needs, and aspirations of children seeking asylum.
• Experience of working with separated children seeking asylum and providing advice to children and young people both in policy and practice.
• Ability to assess operational needs and to develop and implement services to meet that need, in line with contractual requirements.
• Experience of effectively managing a large team of staff and volunteers in a busy service, over a significant geographical area which provides direct services to vulnerable clients.
• Track record of working with statutory agencies, for example local authorities, Home Office and government departments at a senior level.
• Ability to work effectively as part of a multi-cultural team and to develop training programmes to a high standard to address the different needs of the team.
• Robust understanding of UK asylum and welfare legislation affecting separated children, for example Children Act (1989), Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, and Sexual Offences Act (2003).
•  Excellent written and spoken communication skills, sufficient to influence and present on key issues, develop policies and procedures, and report to statutory bodies.
• A good understanding of quality, and of how to set, assess and work with KPIs and other agreed standards/quality marks.
• Ability to operate calmly, sensitively and authoritatively within a pressurised environment.

CVs will be reviewed on a rolling basis by the client