Crisis support worker jobs in belfast
Department: Governance, Compliance and Risk
Location: remote working, with travel including to Head Office in Aldgate, London on ad-hoc basis
Closing date: Tuesday 13th May at 11.59pm
First stage interview : 20th May (via MS Teams)
Second stage interview: 22nd May (via MS Teams)
Annual leave: 33 days (plus eight bank holidays)
Benefits:
- enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave, and shared parental pay
- family-friendly policies
- 8% employer pension contribution (Aviva) or opportunity to continue NHS pension
- free health cashback plan (Medicash): employee cover plus up to four dependent children
- 24/7 virtual GP access (UK registered), plus access to Best Doctors
- free, confidential employee assistance programme (Medicash)
- access to a wellbeing app
- flexible working options including hybrid working, flexible working patterns such as part-time, compressed hours, and more*
- learning and development opportunities including bespoke training and access to LinkedIn Learning)
- commitment to employee health and wellbeing.
- we have a Menopause Friendly accreditation and are a Disability Confident employer
Background
Every three minutes someone in the UK develops dementia: a progressive and complex condition that can be devastating for the whole family. One in two of us will be affected by dementia in our lifetime – either by caring for someone with the condition, developing it ourselves, or both.
Dementia UK is the specialist dementia nursing charity that is there for the whole family. Our specialist nurses, known as Admiral Nurses, provide free, expert advice, support and understanding to help families care for their loved one. Every day, Admiral Nurses help families up and down the country to have the best life possible, for as long as possible.
About the role
Join Dementia UK as Head of Governance, Compliance and Risk, where you will help the charity and its workforce comply with all necessary regulations and manage risks to the organisation, its employees, clients, reputation, assets and the interests of stakeholders.
As part of the governance team, you will work with senior managers across the organisation as a trusted advisor, providing day-to-day coordination and oversight of all governance bodies, meetings and working groups. You will also support the efficient flow of information to the Director of Finance and Corporate Services, enabling them to update the Trustee Board effectively.
You will play a major role in making sure that the policies set by the charity are strictly followed by the entire workforce. This diverse workforce includes volunteers, employees, sessional workers and consultants. You will be responsible for maintaining messaging and behaviour that reflect the necessary rules and regulations, providing assurance that the charity complies with both external requirements and internal policies.
Additionally, you will oversee the operational requirements relating to insurance and develop effective plans to manage crises (including business continuity plans) or respond to compliance breaches.
The ideal candidate will hold a university degree in a business-related discipline, complemented by a relevant postgraduate qualification and professional certification (such as IRM Qualification, IA Cert, CIA, or Chartered Internal Auditor). You will demonstrate a thorough understanding of risk and regulatory frameworks, supported by extensive senior leadership experience in compliance and risk management within a public sector or not-for-profit environment. You will also have a strong track record of supporting internal audits from initiation through to the completion of action points, alongside a proven ability to engage and collaborate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders both within and external to the organisation.
If this sounds like you, join us in making a difference in the lives of those affected by dementia.
Our culture
In addition to a competitive salary and a generous benefits package, we truly value our people. It’s important for us to create a working environment that looks after our workforce to support them in achieving their full potential. You will become part of a diverse and dedicated team who are supported to use and develop their skills. We recognise and value the key role you will play in delivering our strategic plans for the benefit of those living with dementia.
Our staff have a voice. Representatives from different roles and levels across the organisation positively contribute to and lead on our working groups around health and wellbeing, menopause, and equity, diversity and inclusion.
Dementia UK is proud to welcome everyone. We aim for a truly inclusive culture with talented, diverse teams that represent a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We celebrate difference and individuality and encourage everyone to join us and be their whole selves always.
Dementia UK is a Disability Confident Employer. If you’d like support to make an application, contact the recruitment team.
This role will be subject to a Basic DBS check.
By applying to join Dementia UK, you acknowledge that in the event you are successful for the role, any offer and your ongoing employment will be conditional on you having or obtaining the right to work in the UK.
*Please note that any decision on flexible working is based on business needs
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Using Anonymous Recruitment
This organisation is using Anonymous Recruitment to reduce bias in the first stages of the hiring process. Submit your application as normal and our system will anonymise it for you. Your personal information will be hidden until the recruiter contacts you.
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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
• Make sure you’ve read the job description and the essential requirements – make sure your answer reflects those points in the requirements very clearly.
• Really tell us why you want to work for Kinship. We’re interested in working with people who share our values.
• Keep your response clear – use bullets points and short paragraphs if that helps. It will help the recruitment team to really focus on your answer.
• Please do not use AI tools like ChatGPT to produce your answers. We use software to check and your application will be rejected if you do.
We support kinship carers in their homes and communities, giving advice and helping them work through problems to find the best way forward.





The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.