Children and family support worker jobs in bristol, bristol city

About the role

As one of two Regional Programmes Manager, you’ll inspire and lead a team of Senior Programmes Officers 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.

Key responsibilities include:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Act as a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship

Essential requirements include:

• 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.

How to apply

In place of a cover letter, you will be asked to answer the following five questions, alongside providing your CV. Please keep your answers to a maximum of 250 words.

1. Tell us why you’re interested in working for Kinship in this role and what experience you bring that would make you successful? This is an opportunity to tell us about you, your experience and your values.
2. Please give an example where you have managed a successful regional programme or service (this could also be national). Please include scale, key performance indicators and outcome. What made it a success?
3. What makes you a great team manager? Give one example of how you have supported teams and individuals to flourish and one example when you have had to step in to address behaviour or performance issues. (This is an opportunity to share your enthusiasm for supporting others to develop and deliver to a high standard. You can share evidence of how your approach has worked and how you’ve tackled challenges and difficult conversations along the way).
4. Quality assurance and consistency is key to making sure our programmes deliver impact for our kinship carers. This includes ensuring your team are following processes, using our case management system effectively and have the tolls to do their role. Please describe how you would approach this at Kinship using a previous example.
5. In this role you will be a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship. This is a key role, the lives of kinship carers are incredibly complex.  Give one example of a safeguarding situation that required your response in a previous role. Explain what your rationale and thought process was. How did you hold appropriate boundaries and progress actions to effectively safeguard vulnerable children and adults?

Key Dates

• Application deadline:      Friday 9th May, 10pm
• First interview: Online – Tuesday 6 May
• Second interview: In person (Vauxhall, London) – Tuesday 13 May (travel expenses covered if required)

About Kinship

We are Kinship. The leading kinship care charity in England and Wales. We’re here for kinship carers – friends or family who step up to raise a child when their parents aren’t able to.

We are made by and for our community of kinship carers. Like family, relationships run deep. And we hear their experiences; for too long they have been isolated without the help they need.

We support, advise and inform kinship carers. Connecting them so they feel empowered. Because a child needs the love and warmth of a thriving family.

We develop research, campaigns and policy solutions. Creating positive change across society. Because for kinship families, love alone is not enough.

Through our work we harness frustrations to fuel passion for change. And tough experiences to inspire ideas that transform lives.

And as we see momentum building, we keep using evidence to demonstrate the value of kinship care. Helping kinship carers navigate challenging circumstances. Believing in a child’s potential.

Join us. Together, let’s commit to change for kinship families.

Research Associate - National Youth Agency

Contract: 12-month Fixed Term Contract (with potential to extend)
Hours: Full-time - 37 hours per week 
Salary: £30,000 – £35,000 per annum, dependent on experience
Remote: This role is 100% homebased with occasional travel for staff residentials and other events.

What we do

As the national body for youth work, the NYA has a dual function. We are the professional statutory and regulatory body (PSRB) responsible for qualifications, quality standards, and safeguarding for youth work and services in England. In line with our charity mission and aims, we also champion youth work through research, advocacy, campaigns, and programmes.

We work in partnership and believe in collaborative leadership, listening to youth workers and the youth work sector so that we can understand their needs and respond to the challenges they face. We are ambitious for youth work and for young people and integrate youth voice and influence across our work

About the Role

This is an exciting opportunity to join our Knowledge Team, working alongside two existing Research Associates and a Data Analyst. 

You will be integral in delivering research, data, and insights that support organisational development and programme delivery across NYA.

We are looking for an experienced mixed-methods researcher with a strong understanding of social research and evaluation approaches. Ideally, you will have experience working in or alongside the youth sector and be confident using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

You’ll need to be flexible, proactive, and a strong communicator, able to explain complex ideas to varied audiences. 

This role is ideal for someone looking to make a tangible difference through evidence-led approaches that shape policy, practice, and impact in youth work.

Key responsibilities for this role will include:

• Designing and delivering research projects using a range of methods including surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
• Supporting the development of the NYA research and data hub, including external research collation and data visualisation.
• Leading on evaluations to meet funder requirements and contribute to NYA’s growing evidence base.
• Analysing data from NYA programmes to support impact measurement.
• Promoting evidence-based practice across NYA and the wider youth sector.
• Communicating findings clearly through reports, briefings, and presentations.
• Managing research projects and collaborating with internal and external partners to deliver on time and to quality.
• Responding to internal and external research enquiries.

The ideal candidate will have experience in social research, familiarity with various research methodologies, and the ability to communicate complex findings to diverse audiences. 

Please refer to our Candidate Pack for more information on the role and the requirements.

Why Work for NYA?

NYA operates as a people-first organisation, prioritising the well-being and needs of its employees.

NYA offers an exceptional flexible working approach which encourages our team to balance professional responsibilities with their personal life.

A remote based team, spread across England, fostering inclusivity and diverse talent. Despite geographical distances between team members, NYA maintains a highly motivated and connected team through the optimisation of digital tools.

NYA is committed to supporting the continual personal and professional development of our team and helping them achieve their ambitions.

We provide 25 days leave plus 8 days, life assurance scheme, 5% employer pension contribution and a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme via Spectrum.life with unlimited specialist support available to all NYA employees.

How to Apply:

Please download our applicant pack to find out more about the role and requirements

To apply, please submit the following via our online application platform by 11:59pm on Monday 12th May 2025:

A detailed CV setting out your career history, with responsibilities and achievements in line with the person specification in the About You section. 

A covering letter (maximum two sides) highlighting your suitability for the role and how you meet the requirements in the

About You section. 

We will request data for our EEDI monitoring purposes, providing this is optional.

Please note: the covering letter is an essential part of the application process and will be assessed as part of your full application. We use AI detector software, so cover letters or CV’s with over 30% AI generated content with be disregarded. We understand that AI tools can offer support to candidates who have learning differences, which is why we will accept applications with some AI assistance. CV’s will not be accepted without a cover letter.

The National Youth Agency is an equal opportunities employer. 

At NYA our inclusive culture means that we embrace individual differences and understand that we need a diverse team to achieve our organisations mission. 

We wish to recruit candidates from all backgrounds to ensure our team reflects the rich diversity of the communities we serve. We encourage applications from anyone regardless of disability, ethnicity, heritage, gender, sexuality, religion, socio-economic background and political beliefs but we particularly welcome applications from global majority candidates and those from other minoritised ethnic groups in the UK as they are currently underrepresented in our team.

Youth Work changes lives

Which is why we’re committed to ensuring that as many young people as possible get to benefit from it. As the national body for youth work in England, the National Youth Agency (NYA) exists to champion its transformative power.  We believe all young people should have the opportunity to benefit from the life-changing impact of extraordinary youth workers and trained volunteers.

We help to grow youth work provision in ways that keep it effective, relevant, safe and engaging, to help millions of young people reach their potential and thrive. We do this by providing guidance, support, advice, training and staff development opportunities for youth workers and youth work organisations. At the heart of everything we do are young people themselves. We work hard to ensure their voices are integrated into all our work, to develop provision that truly meets their needs.

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