Quality & Assurance Lead - Fostering

POLARIS COMMUNITY

Role: Quality Assurance Lead - Scotland

Location: Homebased Covering Scotland

Basic Salary: £40,000 - £50,000 per annum dependent on experience

Benefits: 30 days' Annual Leave (rising to 35 with length of service) + Bank Holidays, Company Pension, Life Assurance, Employee Discount Scheme & Free On-Site Parking

ABOUT US

We are Polaris, one of the UK's largest leading communities of children's service providers. Within the community, we have independent fostering and adoption agencies who have been passionately improving the lives of young people for over 30 years, as well as Leaving Care services, Education and bespoke children's services contracts. Our nurturing community works collectively to support the very best outcomes for each and every child in our care. We're ambitious for our children and young people, families and staff, and believe in their futures.

We are delighted to be seeking a QA Lead to support our Fostering teams in Scotland. The role may develop to include supporting children's education and residential services.

This new role will comprise of the following duties:

Responsibilities:

• To ensure effective evaluation and oversight of the performance and quality of all services and settings across our fostering agencies in Scotland.
• To ensure there is a system and process of learning and review, triangulating information from audits, complaints and compliments, engagement and participation activities, internal and external reviews.
• To lead internal services reviews of fostering, residential and education services in Scotland as well as providing support to colleagues undertaking reviews as part of a community-wide programme.
• To provide advice and guidance with the management of complex and high risk safeguarding matters
• To lead on any reviews of circumstances where serious and significant events have taken place in our Scottish Services under the guidance and support of the Head of Safeguarding
• To support audits, analyse findings, prepare, and deliver SMART reports/ presentations to staff across the Services, celebrate and sharing good practice and making recommendations for improvements. Work with teams to support their implementation.
• To have strategic influence on the Quality and performance agendas across all services in Scotland and engage in operational senior leadership team meetings and development forums where required.
• Assist with the development and review of relevant policies, procedures, and standards to support good practice across all our Scottish services thus ensuring the most up to date policy and associated documents are accessible and used appropriately in practice

Requirements:

• Professional Qualification up to Level 9 (Scotland) or Level 6 (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) in a relevant field eg Social Work, Education, Healthcare, Public Sector
• Significant experience of working in the fostering sector in Scotland
• Strong knowledge and experience of working under legislation, guidance and policy relating to social work and social care in Scotland.
• Excellent knowledge of Safeguarding in children's services in Scotland specifically, working knowledge of safeguarding frameworks in the rest of the UK would be desirable
• A willingness to engage with the education and children's residential sectors in Scotland and other UK jurisdictions should this be required.
• A commitment to Equal Opportunities in all work practices

Only those with significant experience of working in the fostering sector will be considered for this role.

For an informal discussion about this new role, please contact Ben McQuillan - Senior Quality Assurance Lead - Fostering at 01527 556480

Polaris Community is an equal opportunities employer and has been awarded the disability confident employer by the jobcentre plus. The successful applicant will be subject to a PVG check at enhanced level if successful for the position.