Regional Head of Together4Children

Together4Children is an innovative partnership between Shropshire Council, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Telford & Wrekin Council. We are the regional adoption agency for the four councils. We also provide other services and initiatives that support children’s permanency.

Our ambition is to ensure that children who come into local authority care and are not able to return to their parents, achieve permanence within loving families without unnecessary delay.
This role is employed by Staffordshire County Council with duties across the Together4Children Region.

Main Responsibility
The position is based in Stafford, however, Together4Children operates from a range of office locations across our region and there is potential flexibility in relation to the main office base for the role. We also operate an agile working approach to service delivery. Regional activity and communication is supported through the use digital technologies including Microsoft Teams.

Key Accountabilities include:
• System-wide leadership across the Together4Children Regional Permanency Partnership.
• Accountable lead for the Together4Children Regional Adoption Agency (RAA), ensuring statutory and regulatory compliance and representing the Agency locally, regionally and nationally.
• Leading the Regional Senior Leadership Team (SLT) for Together4Children to take accountability for the delivery of outcome focused services for children and their families.
• Leading change and transformation through the development of regional service provisions that enable children to achieve permanency.
• Act as the Principal Advisor to the Together4Children Regional Management Board, providing expert, specialist and timely information, advice and guidance to ensure the Partnership achieves its strategic goals, outcomes and priorities.
• Advocate for children, birth parents, foster carers, adopters, kinship carers and special guardians; and engage with the regional workforce to ensure that a broad range of views, opinions and lived experiences directly inform development and practice across the Together4Children region.

The Ideal Candidate
We're looking for a passionate, committed and highly motivated individual to join us in this key leadership role. Reporting to our Regional Management Board represented by Directors/Assistant Directors of Children’s Services you'll be working with a range of national and regional stakeholders. You'll be an insightful thinker with a track record of delivering complex services, driving performance and developing practice.
You'll also be required to:
• Have a recognised Social Work qualification and be registered with Social Work England
• Bring your comprehensive management and leadership experience to the role
• Have expertise across Care Planning, Adoption, Fostering, Kinship Care and Special Guardianship.
• Be forward-thinking and able to deliver against the Partnership’s vision
• Have an understanding of current national policy and developments relevant to Children Social Care and the drivers for change.

As a strong leader, you will utilise your skills to harness partnership working and navigating the complexities of adoption and other forms of permanence, whilst maintaining an absolute focus on children’s outcomes.

For more information or an informal chat
Please contact nisha.gupta@staffordshire.gov.uk the Assistant Director of Childrens Social Care at Staffordshire or Jo.Britton@telford.gov.uk Children's Services Executive Director at Telford and Wrekin.

About Staffordshire County Council and our Values
The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.
Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.
We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

Our benefits
We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to a range of benefits.

Our recruitment process
As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities
As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Silver Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.
As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.