Innovation training manager jobs

Ready to define what “good” looks like and make it real across our services?

Hft has turned a corner. After navigating a period of significant financial and operational challenge, we have delivered a major turnaround, reducing a £17 million deficit, stabilising our workforce, and restoring confidence across every level of the organisation.

Now, with a new and focused Executive Team working closely with our Senior Leadership Teams, clear governance, and a collective understanding of the need to embed sustainable improvement across all areas of the organisation, we are moving from recovery to transformation.

The Opportunity

You will lead the development and delivery of an integrated, organisation-wide approach to quality, safety, safeguarding and great practice. Your focus will be on ensuring people are supported to live safe, meaningful and aspirational lives. This role brings together quality assurance, safeguarding, safety and practice into a clear and consistent approach across a complex, national organisation.

You will drive and oversee quality, safety and governance systems that support them. You will maintain clear oversight of performance, risk and compliance, and provide assurance, insight and challenge to the Executive Team and the Board. You will ensure regulatory compliance, safeguarding, and health and safety systems are robust, responsive, and consistently upheld, but, importantly, rooted in the understanding that all of this is to make sure that the people supported have great lives.

Working closely with operational leaders, you will identify underperformance and support improvement. You will use data, audits, incidents, and feedback to generate insights and drive continuous improvement. You will also help shape a shared understanding of what great practice looks like across services.

If you have senior leadership experience across quality, safety, safeguarding and practice within a learning disability charity or social care provider, we would love to hear from you. Please refer to the candidate brief attachment for full details of the role.

Please note: This role is a Home-based position (travel 3 times per month to Bristol/other locations)

What you will bring to succeed in this role

Essential

• Senior leadership experience across quality, safety, safeguarding and practice within a large learning disability charity or social care provider
• Accountable experience of leading operational health and safety within a multi-site, CQC regulated care environment
• Ability to lead and develop high-performing teams
• Experience of providing clear assurance and reporting on health and safety performance, risks and compliance to senior leadership and/or Board
• Communication and influencing skills, with the ability to work across organisational boundaries
• Experience embedding co-production and lived experience into organisational approaches
• Highly developed analytical skills and ability to use data to drive decisions
• Confident in leading change, improvement and cultural development

Selection Process

We will be shortlisting applications on an ongoing basis. If your application is shortlisted, we will invite you to a pre-screening interview with a member of the senior hiring team. If you are successful at this stage, the final assessment process will include a competency-based interview, a presentation, and the opportunity to meet with key stakeholders to get to know the team and Hft.

As part of our recruitment process, we are proud to include the voices of people with learning disabilities. You will meet them throughout the process, and they will play a key role in the final stages of selection. Their perspective shapes how we lead, listen and make decisions at Hft.

We anticipate the following timelines:

• Closing date: 9 June 2026
• Pre-screening interviews: 12, 15 or 16 June 2026
• Final assessment: 30 June 2026

We may close this role early if we receive a high volume of applications, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

Our Commitment to Inclusion

We are committed to recruiting people from diverse backgrounds and believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce helps us better support the people we work with to live their best lives. If there is anything we can do to support you to do your best during the application and selection process, please contact our recruitment team at Hft.

About Gaddum

Gaddum is one of Manchester’s oldest charities, having been around for almost 200 years. We are a mental health and carers charity that provides support to individuals and families across Greater Manchester and the North. Our work spans across a range of services, including mental health support and carer assistance, aiming to empower individuals to live healthier, more independent lives.

Our mission is clear... to help every individual in the communities we serve to achieve equitable health, wealth and self. This means not only providing direct support through our services but also championing the rights of those who may otherwise go unheard and campaigning for systemic change across our sector.

As an anchor institution, Gaddum plays a key role in supporting the sustainability and development of the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector. We work alongside other organisations to ensure their impact is recognised and that the sector is equipped to meet the needs of the communities we serve.

Our Values…

…are our foundations – they are what hold us firm in uncertain times, and they are our reference point for all that we do. 

We value:

Being Heard: no matter why or how someone finds their way to us, we will listen

Collaborative Curiosity: harnessing our skills, knowledge, talents and the insights of others, we create new possibilities by exploring with people

Purposeful Work: paying attention to others’ needs and voices, we channel our resources into actions and outcomes that matter to the people we serve

Meaningful Connection: treating every individual as a whole person, developing relationships through empathy and acceptance

Thoughtful Safe Services: providing clear reasons for decisions and efficient, safe and effective practices, we earn confidence and trust by focusing on quality

Job Purpose

To work as a member of Gaddum Therapeutic Services which includes Counsellors, Social Workers, Art Therapists, and Play Therapists.

To provide therapeutic support to CYP who have become stuck in their grieving process following a bereavement of a significant person. This will include one to one work and occasional group work which will usually take place at the child’s school, community venue or remotely via telephone or online video.

To offer advice and guidance to professionals and carers who contact us following a child’s complex bereavement. Effective working relationships with parents, carers and other professionals will be a crucial element of the role.

Main Duties

o To be accountable to the CYP Therapy Coordinator.

o Act as an initial point of contact for family members and professionals considering a referral to the service or requesting advice and guidance.

o Provide support in the grieving process, offering advice, making an initial assessment of need and signposting to other services where appropriate.

o Following assessment, offer therapeutic intervention to CYP, supporting their adjustment to loss and building resilience. Interventions should meet the assessed needs of each individual.

o Ensure all involved with the CYP understand the complexities of a bereavement, including those experienced as a result of trauma.

o Maintain case records, monitor and evaluate your work in line with the organisations processes and protocols.

o Undertake regular reviews with family members and other professionals as appropriate.

o Ensure effective multiagency working with other professionals.

o Work to Gaddum’s policies and procedures.

o Ensure Safeguarding procedures are carried out in line with relevant legislation and Local Authority requirements.