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SalaryAbout the team
We have been successfully running the first ever national Peer Support Service for kinship carers in England for over two years since January 2022. We have created 145 Peer Support groups and supported and trained kinship carers to create and lead their groups in a way which meets their needs.
With a new contract from the Department for Education, we’re now entering a new phase of our service with a focus on:
- creating 90 new sustainablePeer Support groups in areas of most need over 21 months;
- sustaining and developing the current 145 existing groups, and;
- providing support and help to build a sustainable and welcoming community for all Peer Support groups across England.
About the role
The type of person we’re looking for:
This is a new a role and a new structure for the team. You will need to be a strong, boundaried manager and leader. You will understand the power of building relationship-focussed Peer Support groups and the importance of in person local community engagement and outreach.
The team you lead will focus on community outreach and relationship building to develop new groups and new support group leaders through to independence. By independence, we mean that the groups will function successfully without a staff member present.
We want groups to feel a sense of community and belonging through all support and services we offer at Kinship, so your team will be the local contact. They are expected to be out and about in communities.
Your team will need to build resilience through in person outreach, support, training and connection to ensure groups are able to function independently before moving to new ‘hub’ team who will provide centralised support and community building.
Your team will also reach out to existing groups (providing a face of the service and a relationship with it), ensuring they have the resources they need and support to sustain their group and then transition to the ‘hub’ team. This will include in person visits.
Purpose of the role:
The role of Programme Lead is to oversee and take accountability for the development and creation of new sustainable kinship Peer Support groups across England in priority areas as part of a new hub and spoke delivery model. In this context, your team is the ‘spoke’ of the service, delivering local outreach, online groups (where appropriate) and relationship building with kinship carers.
Managing a national team of seven staff (two direct line reports), you will provide firm leadership, ensuring targets and funder SLAs are met consistently and the service is delivered to a high quality. You will provide monthly reports, ensuring delivery is on track and most importantly that kinship carers have an excellent and positive experience.
Key responsibilities include:
Deliver sustainable Peer Support groups for kinship carers.
Ensure policies and systems to deliver new groups and move others to sustainability, are followed and updated with user needs at the heart.
Champion and innovate the Peer Support service blueprint.
Oversee day-to-day operations for service delivery and meet KPIs and SLAs.
Line manage and supervise two Senior Peer Support Officers.
As a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship, you will work closely with other colleagues to identify areas of training for the organisation and identify improvements in delivery or processes.
Essential requirements include:
- Substantial experience in delivering a high-profile national service or programme. This includes overseeing delivery, operational planning, monitoring, budgeting, managing delivery and meeting KPIs.
Significant experience of leading the development and delivery of Peer Support and community development services.
Significant experience of managing volunteer recruitment and retention.
Significant experience of change management and driving high performance.
Key Dates:
Deadline: 9am on Monday 10 June 2024
Interviews: Monday 17 June 2024 (online)
How to apply:
We will ask you for your CV and to respond to five questions via the Applied platform. Please note that all answers will be viewed anonymously by reviewers and CVs will not be viewed until after this sift has happened. This is the first opportunity to demonstrate your experience and to stand out in the recruitment process. Reviewers will not see all your answers together until all the questions have been reviewed and the CV has been reviewed separately. They will be marking on the strength of the response to each question. Once this is complete, both will be reviewed together. You will have 250 words per answer.
Questions for application (along with CV):
- Outline why you want to work at Kinship in this role, and how your values align to the Kinship ones? Please include a bit about your experience in this section.
- This role will oversee a delivery team, who will need to be out in the community setting up and developing sustainable Peer Support groups lead by kinship carers, across England. Please give one example of how you have previously approached regional and local community outreach across a team. How did you ensure this approach was effective, efficient and strategic?
- This service is a high-profile contract, funded by the Department for Education. Targets and SLAs need to be met while providing impact for kinship carers. Your team targets will be about developing sustainable Peer Support groups (lead by kinship carers). Please give a previous example of how you’ve delivered and met targets with high quality outputs. Please where possible relate to this job role.
- You’ll be leading a team who has been through a restructure, with new staff starting, and a new hub and spoke model to embed. You will need to work at pace, while providing strong leadership and clarity to the team. How would you approach the first three months, what will you prioritise and what will you need?
- In this role you will be a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship. 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?
