Children's Services Manager

Barnardo's is seeking a skilled and ambitious Children's Services Manager to lead a diverse and high-impact portfolio of services across the Midlands.

This is a unique opportunity to oversee a broad range of provision supporting children, young people and families with varying and often complex needs. The postholder will lead services including Warwickshire BASE, which provides targeted support to improve emotional wellbeing, resilience and engagement with education; the Household Support Fund, delivering practical support to families experiencing financial hardship; Pathway to Potential, offering early help and targeted interventions to strengthen family resilience and relationships; and Wolverhampton Power 2, supporting children and young people to develop confidence, emotional wellbeing and life skills.

In addition, the role includes oversight of Dudley Advocacy, which ensures children and young people's voices are heard through independent advocacy, as well as Sandwell SENDIASS and Warwickshire SENDIASS, both of which provide impartial information, advice and support to children, young people and families navigating special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) systems.

This varied portfolio spans early help, targeted support, SEND services, advocacy and community-based provision. It requires a confident and adaptive leader able to operate across different service models, funding streams and local authority areas.

Key responsibilities include:

• Providing strategic and operational leadership across a multi-service, multi-area portfolio
• Ensuring high standards of safeguarding, quality, and performance across all services
• Leading and developing multidisciplinary teams delivering a range of interventions and support
• Overseeing service contracts, budgets and compliance within differing commissioning frameworks
• Building strong partnerships with local authorities and key stakeholders across Warwickshire, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell
• Driving service development, innovation and continuous improvement
• Ensuring the voices of children, young people and families shape delivery and design

About you:

• Significant experience managing diverse children's services, ideally across multiple local authority areas
• Strong leadership capability with experience of leading managers and dispersed teams
• Knowledge of SEND, advocacy, early help and family support services
• Experience of working in complex, multi-agency environments and managing external partnerships
• A track record of delivering against performance, quality and contractual requirements
• A passion for improving outcomes for children and tackling inequality

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a complex and rewarding portfolio, making a meaningful difference to children and families across multiple communities.

The role requires a flexible and responsive approach to working across a wide geographical area, with regular travel to services and partner locations to maintain visibility, build relationships and support teams. At the same time, the postholder will be expected to work in an agile way, using virtual platforms effectively to lead, manage and collaborate across dispersed services. This balance of physical presence and remote working is key to ensuring strong leadership, consistent oversight and accessible support for staff, while maintaining efficiency and responsiveness across the portfolio.

For more information about the service porfolio, please refer to the additional information sheet. 

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date.  We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible