Assistant Director, Children's Services

North Somerset is a place where relationships matter. We’re a small, friendly authority with big ambitions, and we’re looking for an exceptional leader to join us as our next Assistant Director of Children’s Services. This is a pivotal role at a critical time, offering the opportunity to lead transformational change.  We have ambitious plans to make a positive difference to the lives of our children and young people. With the arrival of our new Chief Executive, Mandy Bishop, this is an exciting time to join us as we embark on a new phase of reform and transformation. 

A qualified social worker, you will be responsible for providing professional leadership to our multi-skilled workforce and driving practice improvement. Our Practice Approach is called Building Connections underpins everything we do - strengths-based, restorative, and trauma-informed practice model and we are looking for a leader that truly believes in family led decision-making and keeping children within their local community and extended family networks.

As Assistant Director, you will lead our children’s support and safeguarding services, including early help, family support, corporate parenting, youth justice, and quality assurance - but we are going through a period of change to enable the implementation of the Families First Reforms - with a restructure in November, and this role will be central to implementing that change. You will need to bring experience of improvement, a clear understanding of what good looks like, and the ability to work across boundaries with a genuine interest in connection and collaboration.  We are looking for someone to support our continuous improvement journey towards the best outcomes for all our children.

We are a Council with strong values, good members, and a clear sense of purpose and commitment to transformation. Like all council's we have financial challenges, but you will be well supported politically, and we have recently been supported with additional Investment for the creation of our own In-house residential provision.  In return we ask that you are a strong corporate player, able to build relationships across adult’s services and other directorates and provide strong financial credibility and assurance around spend and strategic direction.

This is a place where you can truly make your mark. With strong political support, a programme of transformation underway, and a partnership ready to innovate, you’ll be joining at a time of real opportunity.

For a confidential discussion, please contact our colleagues at Tile Hill, Anita Denton 07725554802 (anita.denton@tile-hill.co.uk) or Helen Alwell 07931 543 313 (helen.alwell@tile-hill.co.uk)

For more information or to apply please visit: www.leadingnorthsomerset.com

• Full contact details;
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• Details of your current salary and notice period
• Notification of any dates when you are not available for an interview.

At Tile Hill, we are committed to inclusion and accessibility. We champion and support all individuals to ensure everyone feels valued, listened to and motivated to get the very best out of each recruitment process and that processes are designed to meet the needs of individuals. If you have any specific requests and would like a confidential discussion with the Tile Hill team, then please email inclusion@tile-hill.co.uk.