Director of Children and Young Peoples Services

Purpose of the Job

To strategically lead and manage our existing CYP services that range from being both clinical and non clinical (Mental Health Support Teams in Schools, Circle crisis prevention café for children and young people, Whole School Approach, Be Kind to Your Mind). To develop and grow a portfolio of children and young people’s mental health services.

The role will lead, manage and oversee the Youth Services team and a range of projects that support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

You can download a PDF of the job description for this role at the bottom of the page.

Growth and Development

• To lead, develop and maintain the strategy, business plan and budget for Youth Services.
• To lead on service development through the identification of unmet needs, local priorities and project opportunities and the development of proposals and bids.
• To work closely with the CEO and Head of Business Development on potential new funded projects, writing or inputting into proposal/bids.
• To support the development of outreach and communications materials about services and impact.

​Lead on Projects

• To provide overall leadership and oversight for project contracts. 
• To oversee the implementation of needs assessments and data analysis to ensure that services are relevant to the needs of stakeholders and meet identified service gaps.
• To ensure that KPIs for all projects are met and have continuous oversight of this and any improvement actions that need to be taken.
• To lead and oversee effective monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) systems (both qualitative and quantitative) evidence base are in place, monitoring key outcomes of the service and produce quality reports.
• To oversee and ensure evidence of key outcomes are in place and inform improving quality programme delivery and service development. 
• To lead and oversee reporting to funders (and other stakeholders where required) in a timely manner.
• Provide guidance and expertise to staff.
• Any other reasonable ad hoc tasks as requested by CEO and in line with the needs of the service.

Partnership Working

• To develop excellent working relationships with commissioners, potential commissioners, partners across North-West London.
• To lead on providing the oversight for partner SLAs and contracts. 
• To ensure in contracts where HFEH Mind is the project lead that partners are supported to achieve project deliverables and targets and provide timely M&E to be included in reports to funders.
• To lead on and coordinate ongoing consultation and skills-sharing with partners.
• To work with national Mind and other Local Mind Associations to collaborate and share best practice.  
• To identify suitable partners and funders for new projects.
• To develop ongoing stakeholder engagement with existing partners, funders and other stakeholders.
• To ensure that partners adhere to safeguarding, suicide prevention and GDPR principles and best practice.
• To work with community groups to establish a clear vision of the role of Mind locally to support people and communities.

Management

• To be an active, positive, accountable member of the Senior Management Team.
• To embed clear, effective communication so that employees feel engaged with and understand the how they fit in.
• To manage the budget and reporting on Youth Services.
• To work collaboratively and strategically with the senior management team, especially to champion an organisation-wide culture, live our values and facilitate high performance, quality, accountability, learning and forward planning.
• To review and restructure the department to enhance and sustain the growth and development of services. To keep in mind direct line-management is kept to 6 managers.
• To lead your team embedding the values of the organisation, agreeing key performance indicators in line with the strategy and business plan, to ensure high performance and promote staff wellbeing.
• To ensure project targets are being achieved with your project managers, empowering them to effectively coordinate Youth Services frontline workers and partners. 
• To build a dynamic and fluid team that has flexibility to deliver different elements of the service as demand dictates and ensure retention and succession planning.
• Providing ongoing feedback and support, as well as monthly supervision to project managers, including safeguarding. 
• To work with HR to lead on team recruitment, JD development, team induction and probation, ensure that mandatory training and staff developmental needs of the team are met and directly supporting the capacity development of the team, through ongoing feedback, supervision and facilitating team discussions and workshops. 
• To work with project managers to ensure all policies and procedures are being adhered to.
• To lead of Safeguarding for Youth services and being accountable to ensure policies and procedures are being followed.
• To lead and manage risk within your area, e.g. by maintaining, reviewing and reporting the risk register to the CEO.
• To take on projects as and when needed to support or develop the organisation.
• To ensure effective administrative systems are in place to support the smooth running of Youth Services.

Person specification

For full person specification see attached job description below.

• Educated to at least degree level.
• Relevant qualifications to this role.
• Minimum five years’ experience of working with people with children and young people with mental health. 
• Highly developed, well-articulated expertise in project management and strategic thinking.
• A track record of delivering accountable services and excellent performance against agreed targets and objectives.
• Experience of income generation, programme expansion and contract management. 
• Experience building and maintaining relationships with a range of stakeholders (service users, funders, partners).
• Substantial experience of budget management.
• Substantial experience of collating quality data for the performance of a service and writing reports.
• Working knowledge of children’s and adult’s safeguarding. 
• Supervision of safeguarding and supporting staff with complex caseloads. 
• Experience of line management, developing staff and retention.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

HFEH Mind are committed to creating and fostering a culture that promotes safeguarding and the welfare of all children and adults at risk. Our safer recruitment practices support this by ensuring that there is a consistent and thorough process of obtaining, collating, analysing and evaluating information from and about candidates to ensure that all persons appointed are suitable to work with children and vulnerable adults.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Equal Opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer; and are proud to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons from all backgrounds.