The Post

This is an excellent and rare opportunity for an experienced manager and qualified worker to join The Lilias Grahm Trust. The post involves supporting practitioners and families whilst developing parenting capacity assessment and the delivery of service. The post holder will contribute to the unique culture and ethos of LGT.

Key Responsibilities:

The successful candidate will:

• Work proactively to achieving positive, engaging, relationships with families, all other services, and stakeholders.
• Lead their team and delegate effectively.
• Motivate families, individuals, and the team with excellent communication, listening and interpersonal skills.
• Undertake high quality written assessments whilst demonstrating critical thinking and warmth in their assessments.
• Continually work to develop the team and service delivery to ultimately benefit the families we serve.
• Contribute and participate in the development, and delivery of the day to day running of the service to promote of the welfare of staff and families.
• Monitor the efficiency and quality of policies, procedures, and current documents, actively promoting a culture of continuous improvement.
• Provide supervision, coaching, mentoring, training and induction to staff and volunteers.
• Be committed and willing to meet the needs of the service, working 9am-5pm, five days a week and additional shift, evening and weekends as required.
• Participate in the on-call system which includes public holidays, evenings, and weekends.

Essential skills and Experience Required

The successful applicant will:

• Hold a degree in Social Work or another relevant degree eg psychology as a minimum qualification with ongoing personal development for continued practice.
• Be trauma informed with a working knowledge of the significant impact that poverty and systems have on children and families.
• Have a keen interest in attachment theory, child development and understanding of an approach of therapeutic parenting.
• Have a current working knowledge of child development, and attachment and trauma informed theory which will underpin practice.
• Be registered with the Scottish Social Services Council and adhere to standards in line with their requirements.
• Have the creativity, compassion, and skill base to deliver robust and focused parenting capacity assessments.
• Have a keen interest in the delivery of The Promise Scotland and the supports required to scaffold families in the community.
• Have Line Management experience (essential) of multi-disciplinary agencies, in children and families.
• Be proficient in the use of Microsoft office programmes, including Excel and PowerPoint.
• Hold a full driving licence and have use of their own vehicle (mileage paid).
• Provide two references and join the PVG Scheme.

Who are we?

The LGT is a registered Scottish Charity which offers independent parenting capacity assessments within a rural residential setting near the village of Thornhill, 10 miles from Stirling town centre. We provided residential placements to parents and their child/children in cases where a Local Authority has concerns about the parent’s ability to meet the children’s needs. By working with the families, we are able to provide evidence -based information about whether the child can remain safely within the family, and if so, what support is required. The LGT’s practice is based on Kate Cairns ‘Five to Thrive working model’ and, via a 12-week parenting capacity assessment we assess, support, and develop parent’s confidence, skills, and insight to promote healthy attachments. The LGT staff team work closely in partnership with independent consultants in Social Work, Psychiatry, Counselling, Health, Play, Music, and Art Therapy to provide a holistic and organic assessment.

The LGT has a committed and motivated staff team whose focus is to strengthen parent and child relationships to provide a better future for families. We are committed to providing high quality support designed around families’ abilities, needs and choices and we do this by providing high quality services that will build parent’s and children’s capacity to overcome stress and alienation arising from poverty and social exclusion.

Values

At the Lilias Graham Trust, we know that there is no prescription or rulebook for every situation. We have therefore developed a statement of values that will underpin and guide all our work. The successful candidate will have the key qualities and share these common values.

The role holder will maintain and develop a culture of:

• Compassion: We will treat every parent, child, family and colleague with kindness, compassion, and warmth.
• Respect: We will treat every parent, child, family, and colleague with respect for our shared humanity as well as for our individual uniqueness. Although we will make assessments, we will not jump to judgemental conclusions and will work in a transparent, honest, and equalising way. Human beings are fallible, and we can all make mistakes. This shared aspect of being human is something we understand.
• Hope: We will create the conditions within which hope can blossom, by believing in the potential of families and understanding how difficult things have been in the past.
• Trust: We will seek to earn the trust of the families we work with. Through transparency, honesty, and solidarity we will aspire to be trustworthy in everything we do, even when outcomes may not be what everyone would hope for.
• Care: All our work will be underpinned by taking time to build authentic, warm, and caring relationships with parents and children. Through proper listening and empathy, we will seek to understand families, their situations, and future hopes.

At LGT families are provided with an opportunity to achieve their potential. As a practice manger you will look for these glimmers of potential and guide the team through evidence-based practice.

Outline of Terms of Employment:

Salary: £38,500pa

Contract: Permanent

Leave entitlement: 20 Annual leave days & 10 Public Holidays

Hours of Duty: 40 hours per week

Pension: Workplace pension scheme

Shift work: Shift and weekend work may be required.

On Call: The post holder will participate in the on-call system,

Who Cares? Scotland is Scotland’s only national independent membership organisation for Care Experienced people. Our strategic vision is to secure a lifetime of equality, respect, and love for Care Experienced people in Scotland.

At the heart of Who Cares? Scotland’s work are the rights of Care Experienced people, and the power of their voices to bring about positive change. We provide individual lifelong relationship-based independent advocacy and a broad range of imaginative participatory and engagement opportunities for Care Experienced people across Scotland. We work alongside Corporate Parents and communities to broaden understanding and create change. We work with policy makers, leaders, and elected representatives locally and nationally to shape law, policy, and practice, working together to build on the aspirations of The Promise and secure positive change.

As a project, Communities that Care works to create a world where Care Experienced children, young people, and adults are known, understood, welcomed, celebrated, and loved. The aim of the Communities that Care Team is to educate the public about the reality of care (as told to us by Care Experienced people), challenge stigma around care experience, and create the conditions for children, young people, and adults with care experience to thrive.

We are seeking a passionate and talented communicator to join our Communities that Care Team as a Development Officer. Working to shape, deliver, and evaluate our work in schools nationwide, with a particular focus in Renfrewshire, you will provide training and support to educational establishments and organisations. You will also deliver our Care Aware workforce training to employers and organisations and potentially the wider UK, helping to create conditions for Care Experienced people to thrive within the workplace.

As an individual with a background working with children and young people, you are adept at creating and delivering learning, teaching, and project plans, with experience providing dynamic training to a range of audiences. Confident writing reports and evidencing practice and impact, you have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, as well as the ability to develop strong professional relationships. Committed to child and human rights, working inclusively, and with the belief that young people can make transformative change in their lives, you understand how structural barriers, social oppression/liberation and intersectionality shape our world. With a deep knowledge and desire to learn about the issues affecting Care Experienced people, you are keen to help create meaningful positive change, challenge stigma, and to keep The Promise.

There is an expectation that the postholder will have a regular presence within the National Office in Glasgow and across Renfrewshire. Home working is offered as part of our commitment to flexible working and wider travel across Scotland will be necessary. Given the remit of the role, as well as the need from team members to contribute to our diverse calendar of exciting local and national participation groups, some evening and weekend work, including overnight stays, will be necessary.

The successful candidate will be joining Who Cares? Scotland at an exciting time, when the voices of those who are in or have experienced care are growing in power, individually and collectively - bringing with them insight, challenge, hope and change. While we would welcome the knowledge gathered through relevant qualifications, we are just as interested in relevant work experience. We welcome and encourage applications from those with experience of care.

Who Cares? Scotland is Scotland’s only national independent membership organisation for Care Experienced people. Our strategic vision is to secure a lifetime of equality, respect, and love for Care Experienced people in Scotland.

At the heart of Who Cares? Scotland’s work are the rights of Care Experienced people, and the power of their voices to bring about positive change. We provide individual lifelong relationship-based independent advocacy and a broad range of imaginative participatory and engagement opportunities for Care Experienced people across Scotland. We work alongside Corporate Parents and communities to broaden understanding and create change. We work with policy makers, leaders, and elected representatives locally and nationally to shape law, policy, and practice, working together to build on the aspirations of The Promise and secure positive change.

We are seeking a passionate and strategic leader to join our team as the Business Development Director. You will play a vital role in driving forwards Who Cares? Scotland’s vision by leading the development of strategic partnerships and securing key funding opportunities. As manager for the Fundraising and Partnerships Team, you will oversee grants, trusts, community fundraising, public tenders, and the setting of income targets. By forging strong relationships with corporate and external stakeholders, as well as overseeing our strategic affiliation with the John Lewis Partnership, your role will expand our public education, income generation, and business development aims. To interweave the organisation’s development of public education training programmes with our core fundraising mission, you will also manage our Creating Communities that Care team, who play a vital role in developing our external training offerings.

As an individual with a background of 5+ years in senior management, preferably in the non-profit sector, you have demonstrable experience in business development, fundraising, and grant writing. You possess a proven track record of successfully securing high-value grants and partnerships from diverse funding sources, leading on the development of strategic plans, and reaching key performance targets with accountability to diverse stakeholders. As a seasoned manager and mentor, you can also collaborate across organisations, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement amongst your colleagues, our volunteers, and our partner organisations. The right candidate for this post will not only bear responsibility for leading core funding strategy, but also serve as a spokesperson for the organisation, representing its mission, values, and impact to external stakeholders. You are, therefore, committed to child rights and human rights, the successful implementation of The Promise, and the belief that young people can make transformative change happen in their lives if given the opportunity.

We have office locations in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paisley, Bellshill, Kilmarnock, and Dundee. There is an expectation that the post holder will also have a regular presence within the National Office in Glasgow, but home working is offered as part of our commitment to flexible working. Given the remit of the role, some evening and weekend work will be necessary, to attend fundraising and member events, as well as Board Meetings.

The successful candidate will be joining Who Cares? Scotland at an exciting time, when the voices of those who are in or have experienced care are growing in power, individually and collectively - bringing with them insight, challenge, hope and change. While we would welcome the knowledge gathered through relevant qualifications, we are just as interested in relevant work experience. We welcome and encourage applications from those with experience of care.

Transforming the experience of child victims and witnesses in Scotland

Children 1st are looking for an exceptional and experienced operational leader to become our Bairns Hoose coordinator/service manager in Aberdeenshire. You will co-ordinate children’s journey through the Bairns Hoose, managing the space, liaising with agencies on behalf of children and their families and leading a team of advocacy and trauma recovery workers. Working within the Aberdeenshire Bairnshoose Development Group alongside Social Work, Police, Health and Justice colleagues to deliver on the ambition to offer children a trauma sensitive, rights-based and recovery focussed response to their care, protection, justice and recovery needs.

The Bairns Hoose is based on the European Barnahus, a child-friendly, multi-disciplinary, and interagency model of justice, care and recovery for children who are victims and witnesses of all forms of violence. A carefully designed place where all services and supports are child centred, rights- based and recovery focussed with Police, Social Work, Health, Court and recovery support services based under one roof.

This service demands a leader who is driven by children’s rights, is passionately committed to trauma responsive models and who has a background in delivering child centred, family minded support and multiagency services. You will lead our team of Rights, Advocacy and Trauma Recovery Workers and ensure the effective and efficient running of the Bairns Hoose. As a member of the Aberdeenshire Bairns Hoose partnership, you will build on the progress made to date and work towards achieving fully the aspiration of a Bairns Hoose for children and their families. As a key member of our Bairns Hoose Team, you will support our ambitions to have the highest quality Bairns Hoose delivering the greatest impact in the lives of children and families.

Our charity is a people and culture organisation. We put children’s rights and relationships at the heart of everything we do. We have ambitious plans for our Bairns Hoose to deliver on the Bairns’ Hoose National Standards, offering support to recover from the point at which children report abuse or harm, minimising the re-traumatisation of the justice and child protection system.

The Bairns Hoose Coordinator role is challenging due to the complexity of the systems change that Bairns Hoose seeks to achieve, requiring significant multiagency partnership working. The role also provides an exciting opportunity for you to develop new approaches to practice within child protection and justice that helps inform the way forward for Bairns Hoose in Scotland. You will shape and lead a high performing team focussed on achieving the best outcomes for children and their families. You will be an excellent communicator, creative, collaborative, inclusive and willing to work alongside our brilliant partners and leaders in Aberdeenshire to achieve our shared strategic vision for Bairns Hoose.

This is an exciting and unique opportunity to join us and play a critical part in transforming the lives of children and families in Scotland, ensuring that children’s voices are at the heart of our Bairns Hoose development and support.

About you

You will have substantial experience of leading a team delivering trauma sensitive support to children, young people and families. You will fully understand the ways in which the current justice and child protection systems retraumatise young people. You understand that ambitious change requires a clarity of purpose and vision and that as a leader it is your responsibility to communicate this. Your leadership and decision making are founded on a strong value base of doing the right thing by children and families at all times. You understand that strong professional, working relationships are the foundation of quality outcomes for children and families and high quality practice within your own team and with external stakeholders.

Knowing our ambition for children and young people, you will:

• Want to transform children’s lives
• Understand trauma and know that with the right support children and young people can recover – there is always a way
• Be able to build strong relationships, work collaboratively with partners and manage tricky conversations
• Be resilient and calm when under pressure – modelling a clear and accountable approach to leadership
• Be an outstanding communicator
• Be enthusiastic, driven and able to motivate and develop a professional team, inspiring colleagues to be even better
• Have a fierce passion for children’s rights and belief in working with children and families; not ‘doing to’
• Believe that it is a privilege to work with and on behalf of children and families and that their voices should be at the heart of service design
• Be kind and willing to bring your whole self to the job: heart and mind, above all else, you are someone who will do the right thing for children and their families at every turn.

If this sounds like you and your values align with ours then we would love to tell you more. An informal conversation with our Assistant Director can be arranged for interested candidates.

Further information

This a full-time role of 35 hours per week. You will work across the Aberdeenshire area. As you will be leading and developing a new service. Children1st are a relationship based organised and we need you to be a physically present ‘hands on leader’ of an amazing team who are similarly ‘hands on’ and ‘in person’ in their support of children and young people and families. The role may also involve occasional travel across Scotland.

Salary, Conditions, Pension

We will offer you a competitive salary, generous annual leave entitlement (40 days inclusive of 7 public holidays), flexible working opportunities and a contributory pension scheme. We also have a cash healthcare plan, cycle to work scheme and access to a credit union.