Head of Safeguarding & Professional Standards

Head of Safeguarding & Professional Standards

Location: Homebased
Contract type: Permanent
Hours per week: 28 per week, Mon – Thurs
Salary: £37,233 pro rata (46,541 FTE) out of London; £38,964 pro rata (£48,705 FTE) London

Closing date: Tuesday 31st January 2023
Panel Interview: Monday 13th February 2023

We are looking for our Head of Safeguarding & Professional Standards who will be the safeguarding lead for Young Lives vs Cancer, shaping and monitoring safeguarding policy and governance, overseeing safeguarding referrals and activity, and advising on how to create a positive safeguarding culture where safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.

ABOUT YOU

The role leads professional development for our Services directorate, with a particular focus on social care practice, to:

•    Enable Young Lives vs Cancer to respond to changes in policy, legislation and best practice in social care and safeguarding
•    Set professional standards for our services, ensure we have robust systems in place that assure quality against these, and highlight areas for continuous improvement.

The Head of Safeguarding & Professional Standards works across the whole charity, including service delivery, fundraising, and all other departments, and works closely with the Services Directorate and the Designated Trustee for Safeguarding.

You would be joining us at a really exciting time in our journey. Following two innovative peer reviews with partner charities, we are confident in our approach to safeguarding. But like many organisations, we need to prepare for the future. We are looking outward to understand how we can create a better future for young cancer patients, one in which the whole system of support around them works together, face to face and digitally, and no-one is left behind. We constantly challenge how we do things, and are experimenting with new ways to create impact, influence the whole system, and importantly – fund this vital work.

You’ll be vital to this journey, leading our approach to safeguarding and professional standards and giving us a high level of confidence as we move forward. You will work closely with a passionate and dedicated group of directors and management teams who lead activities from frontline social care services through to fundraising and support services.

This role is 28 hours week (0.8 FTE), which can be worked over 4 days (Mon-Thu). You will be part of a team that works across the UK. You can be home-based anywhere in UK with easy access to either Bristol or London for occasional meetings. You can also choose to work fully or partly from our Bristol Office.

ABOUT YOU

The person we are looking for will have:

The right experience: you will be a registered social worker and have worked as a as a social worker and in a strategic role in children or young people’s social care services, delivering safe services with particular reference to safeguarding and assurance, and have significant experience of developing social work practice at a strategic or system level.

The right leadership expertise: with strong leadership skills you will have ability to work collaboratively and influence stakeholders across the charity.

The right people skills: Confidence to challenge ways of thinking and the communication skills to coach and empower people to build a culture of safeguarding.

WHAT WE OFFER

In return for your commitment, we offer a great reward package, which includes generous annual leave entitlement, enhanced pension and employee savings scheme.

Every quarter we offer a wellbeing and development day where no meetings are held. It’s a day for everyone to spend time on whatever supports their own personal wellbeing and professional development – whether that’s catching up with training, life admin, exercise or reading. There is no prescription to these days as we know everyone is unique.

At Young Lives vs Cancer we are not your average employer, nor are we looking for an average candidate in a 9-5 role. What we offer is the flexibility and adaptivity to ensure that your personal work/life balance is taken care of. Whether it is finishing early for an appointment, picking up from school or further education, we can help to make it work for you. We would love to discuss your needs more at interview.

At Young Lives vs Cancer, we recognise that opportunities for too many people remain a condition of their race, class, sex, disability, sexual orientation – or a combination. This has never been acceptable to us as an organisation. At Young Lives vs Cancer, we do not just accept difference — we value it, we celebrate it, we nurture it, and we thrive off it. We positively welcome your application irrespective of your background.

We are on a journey, and if you join us, you will be part of a community that is committed make a difference to the lives of children and young people with cancer.

HIRING PROCESS

All candidates are shortlisted via our anonymous screening process to ensure we follow through with a fair recruitment process.

Interviews will be held virtually on Monday 13th February 2023

Following this there may be a second stage, and there will be an opportunity to meet with other members of the Young Lives vs Cancer team.

If you have a medical condition or need for adjustment to our process, please let us know so we can support further if needed.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

This post is subject to a Criminal Records check. In the event of a successful application a Disclosure report will be sought.

You may have experience of the following: Operations Director, Operations Manager, Head of Operations, Project Manager, Project Management, Programme Manager, Programme Management, Safeguarding, Charity, Third Sector, NFP, Not for Profit etc.

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