Regional Programmes Manager – South

As one of two Regional Programmes Manager, you’ll inspire and lead a team of Senior Programmes Worker and Kinship Family Workers to effectively deliver high quality support services for kinship families across Greater London, the South of England and the Midlands.

You’ll do this by working in close collaboration with local authority teams who have commissioned our services and other funders where appropriate.

You’ll have accountability and ownership for ensuring we deliver impactful services for kinship carers and that we meet targets for our commissioned services. Working collaboratively with our other managers in other services, you’ll ensure we’re delivering high impact programmes.

You’ll ensure your team have real clarity and direction on their role and responsibilities – encouraging curiosity, learning and solutions-focused thinking. As a leader in the organisation, you are a key model for the team.

Your team will deliver the following programmes:

• Kinship Connected – in-person one-to-one support and support groups in the community
• Kinship Reach – remote one-to-one support and virtual support groups
• Kinship Ready – online workshops to prepare new and prospective special guardians for their role, as well as wraparound one-to-one support (in one local authority)

You will also manage a new role of Grants Officer – London, funded by The Aviva Foundation.

As one of our deputy safeguarding leads, you’ll be part of our key safeguarding structure. This means you’ll take ownership to make sure our people feel confident and well supported to demonstrate best practice and making sure safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.

Management and development of programmes and services

• Oversee the day-to-day running of programmes, supporting mostly home-based Senior Programmes Workers and Kinship Family Workers to ensure high quality, consistent and impactful programme delivery.
• Meet performance targets as directed.
• Create and keep developing processes and systems which support consistency across all programmes, ensuring good quality documentation and manualisation on Notion.so
• Develop quality assurance frameworks with other service managers and directors.
• Support your team to establish and deliver in-person and virtual peer support groups regionally and generate engagement with kinship carers.
• National lead and oversight for the delivery of one of our programmes with input into other programme development as required.
• Support your team to recruit, train and support volunteers within the region.
• Highlight areas for innovation in service delivery and new service development through horizon scanning for new ideas.
• Co-design and co-production – ensure kinship families are involved in the development and review of programmes and services.
• Strive to ensure kinship families who access our programmes and services are reflective of the diverse communities in which we work and embed equity, diversity and inclusion objectives across your planning and delivery.

Management of people

• Line management and supervision of Senior Programmes Workers and Kinship Family Workers as required.
• Actively encourage personal development and support staff to deliver key targets and outcomes and ensure high levels of wellbeing.
• Ensure new behaviours and values are embedded within your team.

Monitoring and evaluation of programmes and services

• Ensure staff effectively record, monitor and report programme performance via our Salesforce database, facilitating review of performance at monthly team meetings, and that data is stored accurately and in line with Kinship’s data protection policy.
• Comply with any monitoring, evaluation and reporting requirements as part of Kinship’s internal processes, as well as any donor or local authority funding requirements for the services being delivered, including producing quarterly performance reports for local authorities, and other funders and stakeholders as required.
• Proactively use data and insight to develop our programmes and sharing with colleagues to contribute to changing the system for kinship carers.

Business development & relationship management

• Work with the Director of Services and Digital, Head of Programmes and the Business Development team to develop proposals and present to local authorities to secure commissions.
• Manage the delivery of commissioned contracts through collaborative relationships with local authorities, ensuring targets are met.
• Meet regularly with local authority teams in order to report on progress and address any challenges.
• Build relationships with local authorities that may commission Kinship’s services through networking opportunities.
• Support the development of new products and services to meet the needs of kinship families and generate income.
• Support the development of other funding proposals as required.

Budget management

• Manage the programmes and services within budget, in accordance with Kinship’s financial procedures and ensure the reporting of progress in line with funder requirements.

Collaboration

• Work actively and positively with other managers within Kinship to ensure sharing of best practice, problem solving, relevant connections and consistency of delivery across England and Wales.
• Work collaboratively with all involved in delivery of the service, including colleagues across Kinship, local authorities, statutory, voluntary and community groups in order to deliver the service effectively and ensure any challenges are resolved.
• Lead on relationships with local authorities in your regions.

Stakeholder influencing and engagement

• Chair our Kinship Care Professionals group / Communities of Practice in your region or other meetings as required.
• Work closely with the Policy and Communications team, proactively supporting communications and influencing work across your team.
• Represent Kinship at external events and meetings to raise awareness of the services and to influence other organisations, policy and practice.
• Be the media spokesperson for your programme lead.
• Support Kinship’s communications and engagement strategy, such as writing copy and sourcing images for newsletters and local media to promote the service and recruit participants.
• Contribute practice expertise to the development of policy, services and programmes.

Team and culture

• Act in the best interests of Kinship and the families we support.
• Deliver effective administration with attention to detail and keeping to deadlines.
• Take responsibility for your ongoing continued professional development.
• Work in line with Kinship’s values.
• Represent the Programmes team at Kinship team meetings.
• Represent Kinship at external meetings and events as required.

Safeguarding

As a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship, your specific roles and responsibilities will be:

• Helping colleagues plan for and manage risks, including sign-off for risk assessments.
• Providing reflection and support for colleagues for areas of emerging risks, (a space to talk through).
• Responding to safeguarding risk and allegations with clear actions and ensuring appropriate records are kept in a responsive and timely way.
• Communicating with other safeguarding leads to identify areas of training for the organisation and identify improvements in delivery or processes.
• To offer cover to other areas of the organisation when other leads are on annual leave.
• To join an on-call rota (to be agreed) for any out-of-hours delivery.
• To ensure all safeguarding data is collected so reports can be provided to SLT and trustees on the effectiveness of our safeguarding processes.
• Support a learning culture to ensure staff feel able to develop knowledge and are confident in embedding excellent safeguarding practice and our policies.
• Joint organisational responsibility for our safeguarding practice and culture.
• Required to complete a minimum of Level 3 designated person safeguarding lead training and ongoing learning and development.

Knowledge, abilities, skills and experience

Essential
The successful candidate will have:

• Substantial experience in managing a regional service or programme with high quality outputs (national experience desirable but not essential).
• Substantial experience of managing, developing and evaluating effective and innovative services for families experiencing crisis and experience in reaching ‘hidden communities’ and a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
• Experience of leading and managing continuous improvement in changing contexts.
• Experience of governance and managing risk on high profile service delivery.
• Experience of ensuring that services are designed and led with user needs at the heart, ensuring that the voices of our kinship carers inform ongoing design and development of our programmes.
• High quality digital and data literacy and using technology to help us to be better in our processes. You’ll have to own Salesforce and be a massive champion for the team. You will be accountable for ensuring they use it well.
• Substantial experience of leading high-performing service teams including managing wellbeing, development and performance.
• Experience of leading and managing change, with a creative and solutions-focused approach.
• Empathy and understanding and ability to manage and motivate dispersed teams with confidence and clarity while delivering against targets.
• A positive, ‘can do’ solutions driven attitude that sets a clear culture for the team, setting boundaries and helping them to do their roles.
• Willingness to think outside of the box and ability to motivate others to work in non-traditional ways to achieve change for kinship carers and their families.
• Excellent understanding of safeguarding policies and procedures focusing on contributing to a culture which values transparency, reflective practice and continuous learning.
• Experience being the external lead and spokesperson for a programmes, service or project.
• Excellent written, verbal and visual communications with brilliant attention to detail, able to represent Kinship at high level external meetings with conviction and professionalism.
• Proven experience of managing complex stakeholder and multi-agency relationships with diplomacy and sensitivity while maintaining confidence.
• Confidence presenting and engaging as one of the ‘faces’ of the programmes team, providing credibility and professionalism.

Desirable, but not essential, criteria include:

• Lived experience of kinship care.
• In-depth subject knowledge on kinship care and issues affecting kinship carers.
• Experience using Salesforce within a service environment.

General attributes:

• Ability and willingness to travel across the UK to represent Kinship at meetings and events.
• Travel to London office for team meetings and supervision.
• Knowledge and understanding of kinship care and/or children and families who need support.
• Knowledge of, or ability to learn quickly, about the regulations and guidance relating to different legal orders relevant to kinship carers.
• Commitment to the values, aims and objectives of Kinship.
• Ability to apply Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Principles in all areas of work.
• Right to work in the UK.