Refuge manager jobs

Are you a compassionate and driven leader ready to make a life-changing impact?

Join Gilgal, a charity supporting women and children escaping domestic abuse. We are seeking a Head of Service and Operations to oversee day-to-day services and operations, ensuring safety, compassion, and excellence in everything we do.

Location: Birmingham & Remote 
Hours: 22.5 per week (Part time)
Contract Type: Permanent
Starting Salary: £42,000 pro rata
Application Deadline: Friday 18th July

Your mission

In this pivotal role, you’ll lead the delivery of trauma-informed, high-quality support at our Birmingham women’s refuge. You’ll empower frontline teams, manage essential operations, and drive continuous improvement, ensuring every woman and child receives the support they deserve.

You’ll also work closely with our CEO, deputising when required, and play a central role in implementing our mission and values.

What you’ll be doing

·Lead daily operations at our refuge with compassion and professionalism

·Manage and support staff and volunteers, fostering a high-performing team culture

·Oversee charity-wide operations: HR, finance, IT, facilities, and our Charity Shop

·Ensure compliance in safeguarding, health & safety, GDPR, and governance

·Collaborate with the CEO on strategic planning and service development

·Represent Gilgal with partners, funders, and in community settings

·Promote co-production and the voice of survivors in shaping our services

What you bring

Essential:

·Strong operational leadership experience in charity or social care

·Proven track record in team management and finance oversight

·Understanding of safeguarding, trauma-informed care, and data protection

·Emotional intelligence, resilience, and a commitment to women’s rights

·Excellent communication, organisational, and problem-solving skills

Desirable:

·Experience in a refuge or domestic abuse setting

·Familiarity with charity retail or income generation

·Knowledge of VAWG issues and policy in Birmingham or nationally

·Relevant qualifications in leadership, social care, or supported housing

Why Gilgal?

At Gilgal, our mission is to provide a safe, healing space where women and children can rebuild their lives. You’ll be part of a team that values compassion, excellence, and dignity. This is more than a job; it’s a purpose.

Special Conditions:
This post is open to women only under Schedule 9, Part 1 of the Equality Act 2010. The successful applicant will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check.

Ready to lead with purpose?

Apply today and be part of a mission that matters.

Please sypply your CV and cover letter. Applications close on Friday, 18th July. Short listing will take the following week, and interviews will be held week commencing 28th July.

Job Title: Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Location: Remote (UK-based preferred)
Travel: Travel to Calais and UK operational sites required
Contract: Full-time, permanent
Salary: £40,000 per annum
Deadline to Apply: 16 July 2025
How to Apply: Please submit your CV and a cover letter outlining your suitability for the role and motivation for working with Care4Calais.

About Care4Calais

Care4Calais is a volunteer-led humanitarian charity providing essential aid and support to refugees and asylum seekers in Northern France and across the UK. Founded on principles of dignity, compassion, and solidarity, we are committed to creating a fairer, more inclusive society for those seeking refuge.

From providing warm clothing, English classes to legal access, education, and social support, we work tirelessly—through a network of grassroots volunteers and a small, dedicated staff teams—to deliver life-changing help to displaced people. With operations in Calais, Dunkirk, and over 70 locations in the UK, our impact is wide-reaching and continually growing.

About the Role

We are seeking an exceptional Chief Operating Officer (COO) to lead and oversee the strategic delivery of Care4Calais’ operational (direct aid provision) work across all regions. This is quite a newly created role that will play a central part in shaping the charity’s growth, resilience, and day-to-day effectiveness—ensuring our humanitarian aid reaches those who need it most.

The COO will work closely with the CEO, Senior Leadership Team, and Trustees, to develop internal systems, guide operational teams, maintain consistency across all projects, and strengthen our digital communications, training, safeguarding, and volunteer engagement. You will also play a key leadership role in fostering innovation, implementing policy, and coordinating multi-regional delivery across the UK and Northern France.

This is a remote-based role, but regular travel to operational sites in Calais and around the UK is essential to ensure quality, cohesion, and morale across our field teams and volunteer network.

Key Responsibilities

➣ Strategic & Operational Leadership

• Oversee the delivery of all operational activities across the UK and French field sites, ensuring they align with Care4Calais’ mission, values, and strategic goals.

• Lead and support UK Field Operations Managers and France Operations Coordinators in planning and executing aid distributions, support services, and community engagement.

• Monitor performance across regions, using data and feedback to drive improvements in impact, efficiency, safety, and volunteer satisfaction.

➣ Volunteer Coordination & Digital Community Oversight

• Supervise volunteer communication channels, including Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats, and other platforms, ensuring all messaging is consistent, safe, and in line with our organisational tone and values.

• Support the recruitment, onboarding, training, and retention of a diverse and inclusive volunteer base.

• Work daily with Field Operations Managers to provide hands-on guidance, motivation, problem-solving and support for regional leads and volunteer teams.

➣ Training, Safeguarding & Compliance

• Develop, maintain, and implement comprehensive training programmes for volunteers to ensure service quality, safety, and dignity for people seeking asylum.

• Ensure that safeguarding policies are understood by all team members, staff and volunteers alike, and rigorously implemented, acting as a point of escalation for issues that arise.

• Oversee incident reporting processes, risk assessments, and other compliance-related procedures to safeguard both volunteers and people seeking asylum.

➣ Organisational Development & Governance

• Contribute to strategic planning and policy development with the CEO, and SLT.

• Identify opportunities for innovation in service delivery, volunteer management, and infrastructure.

➣ Field Engagement & External Representation

• Conduct regular visits to UK and French operational sites, meeting with local teams, assessing needs, and providing in-person leadership and support.

• Represent Care4Calais in meetings with partner organisations and local authorities, and at public events.

Person Specification

Essential

• Demonstrable experience managing multi-site teams.

• Strong leadership, organisational and communication skills, with the ability to delegate effectively and manage competing priorities.

• Deep understanding of issues affecting asylum seekers, displaced people, or those facing immigration challenges.

• Commitment to anti-racism, inclusivity, and the promotion of human rights.

• Ability and willingness to travel frequently to field operations across the UK and Calais.

Desirable

• Proven experience in a senior operational, COO, or equivalent leadership role within the charity, humanitarian or grassroots community sector.

• Experience working with refugee communities or within the UK asylum system.

• Understanding of safeguarding, compliance, and humanitarian best practices.

Equality & Safeguarding

Care4Calais is an equal opportunities employer. We actively encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, people from refugee and migrant backgrounds, LGBTQ+ individuals, disabled candidates, and those with lived experience of immigration system.

All appointments are subject to enhanced safeguarding checks.

Lived Experience Inclusion

We are an anti-racist organisation and a proud member of the Experts by Experience Employment Network (EBE), which aims to create a charitable sector led by individuals with lived experience of the asylum system.

As part of our membership, we are dedicated to creating inclusive employment practices that recognise and accommodate the unique circumstances and strengths of people with lived experience. We actively move away from a one-size-fits-all approach, ensuring our recruitment processes are fair, supportive, and accessible.

We warmly encourage applicants with lived experience to make use of the guidance and resources available on the EBE website (ebeemployment).

In addition, applicants with lived experience are welcome to connect with the EBE support team for tailored assistance with completing the application form and, where available, one-to-one interview preparation. 

Importantly, we recognise the significant cultural, linguistic, and experiential insights that individuals with lived experience of the UK asylum system bring to this role. As such, all applicants from this background who meet the essential criteria will be automatically shortlisted and invited to interview.

About Us

We Are Survivors are a survivor focused voluntary sector organisation that aims to create and facilitate safe spaces for male (including trans and non-binary individuals) survivors of sexual harms across Greater Manchester providing access to quality assured support. Our work is focused on developing ways for individuals to empower themselves to work through personal and sometimes painful issues, guided and supported by our trauma-informed team, following the trauma and recovery model.

Our vision is to have “A society where NO male survivor is left behind”

About the Role

We're looking for a Senior Trauma Informed Therapist to join the team. Leading peer-mentoring support to trauma-informed therapists while delivering trauma-informed therapeutic services. We are a dynamic service with a holistic service model, so the senior role is supporting wider than just direct delivery.

You'll play a key role in supporting clients, managing communications, supporting volunteers/placements. You will work closely with our Community Development and Criminal Justice Services teams to ensure survivors have access to the right support. All staff have a Thematic Leadership area to expand the organisations knowledge in areas impacting male survivors and their loved ones.

About You

You’ll be someone who is a qualified and experienced therapist working with trauma. We’re especially keen to hear from people with experience in working with men, sexual harms and supporting therapists and trainees, but we value transferable skills too. If you're passionate about creating a society where no male survivor is left behind, this could be the role for you.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead peer-mentoring support to trauma-informed therapists.
• Deliver trauma-informed therapeutic services.
• Lead accurate clinical record keeping of therapeutic service interventions.
• Lead the supervision of therapeutic services waiting lists.
• Undertake specific therapeutic projects as directed by the Executive Team.
Organisational Core Responsibilities
• Stringently uphold the organisation’s values of transparency, integrity, understanding and responsiveness throughout your work and your representation of We Are Survivors.
• Honour a commitment to diversity, inclusion, and anti-oppressive practice and work positively and inclusively with everyone so that We Are Survivors provides a workplace that does not discriminate against people on the ground of their age, sexuality, religion or belief, race, gender, or disabilities.
• Ensure 100% of the work you carry out is for the achievement of the mission “to break the silence of the sexual abuse, rape and sexual exploitation of boys & men and support them and their loved ones to engage in positive healing, free from the impact of abuse” and vision “a society where no male survivor is left behind”.
• Maintain strict confidentiality boundaries as you have access to sensitive, restricted, and classified information; and ensure that you are fully compliant with all information governance policies set by the organisation and/or Information Commissioners Office.
• Respect individuals right to anonymity within and outside of the organisation.
• Fully comply with all professional external frameworks, charters or practice standards that We Are Survivors subscribes to, is a member of, or carries.
• Fully comply with the organisations standard operating procedures / quality assurance, guidelines, policies, and procedures, including all accurate recording of information and ensuring you do not act to compromise the organisational standards or any formal QA Accreditation.
• Remain aware at all times of your responsibilities for your own health and safety, for the Health and Safety of those directly responsible to you, your work colleagues and any others who may be affected by the operations under your responsibility or control.
• Ensure you comply with all requirements identified within infection control measures and risk management, both nationally and locally.
• To work flexibly in the interests of the organisation, which may include undertaking other duties provided that these are appropriate to your background, skills and abilities.

Person Specification

The following attributes are Essential for this role:
Registration:
• BACP, UKCP, BPS (or equivalent).
Qualifications:
• Counsellor/Psychotherapist (BACP or other appropriate membership body recognised).
Knowledge and Experience:
• Experience of coaching or mentoring.
• Understanding of issues relating to rape and sexual assault, particularly those relating to boys and men.
• Experience of providing 1:1 counselling/psychotherapy.
• Experience in data management and information governance.
Skills:
• Ability to prioritise own work load.
• Good written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office Suite, or equivalent, and electronic database system.

The following attributes are Desirable for this role:
Registration: Non applicable.
Qualifications:
• Masters Level or above in Counselling/Psychotherapy.
• EMDR / Post Graduate Diploma in CBT.
Knowledge and Experience:
• Previous experience of working within a highly confidential setting, adhering to data governance.
• Previous experience of working within the voluntary, community or social enterprise (VCSE) sector.
Skills:
• A commitment to diversity, inclusion and anti-oppressive practice.
• Mentoring.

Why Join Us?

· A competitive salary.

· Annual leave package with incremental rises plus bank holidays.

· Company sick pay.

· Birthday annual leave.

· Monthly clinical supervision.

· Pension contribution.

· A range of discount and benefit programmes.

How to Apply

Apply by sending your CV and a short supporting statement (max 2 page) 

Interviews are expected to take place on 7th and 8th August.

By applying for the any of the above roles, you confirm that you have read and agree to our Privacy Notice (see attached)

Equal Opportunities

We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We actively encourage applications from people with lived experience, people from underrepresented backgrounds, and those who identify as LGBTQ+, disabled, or from Black, Asian or minoritised communities.

We are also a Ban The Box Employer and will always give people with criminal records a fair chance to compete for our available roles. We will only ask about criminal convictions in the later stages of our recruitment processes to ensure we are recruiting off of skill, experience and ability before anything else.