We are looking for an experienced, passionate leader with the drive, resilience, and creativity to help lead and transform a fast-paced Assessment and Family Support and Safeguarding Service within a framework of Family First.

As part of the management team you will work with the Head of Service and other Service Managers to provide leadership to your teams and ensure practice promotes outstanding work with our children and families.

The work is challenging and rewarding, underpinned with a strong ethos of strength based, relational, trauma informed and systemic approach to improving lives for our children and families.

This is an opportunity for the right candidate to utilise their leadership skills to motivate, and develop teams to deliver high-quality, child-centred practice, providing both support and constructive challenge to promote professional growth and continuous improvement. You will champion a culture of accountability, learning, and excellence in safeguarding practice, ensuring services remain responsive, effective, and focused on improving outcomes for children, young people, and their families.

We are aspirational for our children and families and for our employees.

This role will cover the City and South Cambridgeshire teams, but flexibility will be required to cover other localities as required.

Cambridgeshire County Council fully supports the principles of the Families First programme and is currently working on implementing the model in a considered and planned way to ensure the changes we make best meet the needs of our local communities and workforce. As the programme develops, you will play a pivotal part in supporting the implementation of the Families First Programme, helping to shape the future of children’s services across Cambridgeshire. Consequently, this role is expected to evolve into a Family Help Service Manager position in the future as the programme progresses.

If this sounds like an environment where you would thrive, we would love to hear from you! For more information, email Sam Howlett, Head of Service, at samantha.howlett@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Closing date 27th September. Interviews will be held in person and are expected to be held week commencing 5th October.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

What will you be doing?

In this role you will:

• Lead and drive service performance, ensuring key performance indicators (KPIs), statutory requirements, and service targets are consistently achieved and improved.
• Provide strategic oversight and quality assurance of all court-related work, ensuring timely, effective, and legally compliant practice across the service.
• Ensure robust safeguarding arrangements are in place, providing leadership and oversight of immediate responses to children and families where there is a risk of significant harm.
• Take overall responsibility for decision-making and service delivery in high-risk safeguarding cases, ensuring risks are identified, assessed, and managed effectively.
• Monitor and evaluate service outcomes, implementing improvement plans and interventions to enhance performance, quality, and impact.
• Work collaboratively with managers, practitioners, and partners to develop and deliver service plans that continually improve outcomes for children, young people, and families.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key partners and stakeholders, demonstrating the ability to work collaboratively across agencies to deliver effective safeguarding and family support services.
• Support and challenge managers and practitioners to deliver high-quality safeguarding practice that prioritises the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.
• Work closely with partner agencies, legal services, and the judiciary to ensure coordinated planning and positive outcomes for children and families.

About you

As an experienced Children’s Social Care leader, you have experience of driving performance improvement and achieving service KPIs.

You demonstrate a strong understanding of statutory safeguarding responsibilities, child protection processes, and court proceedings alongside excellence in partnership-working, engagement, and stakeholder management skills.

You analyse complex information, manage risk effectively, and make sound decisions in high-pressure situations, with strong leadership, communication, and people management skills, your focus is always on achieving positive outcomes for children and families.

You are a qualified Social Worker with a Social Work England registration and have the ability to work from a variety of locations and travel countywide independently.

For a full list of the requirements of the role, please check out the Job Description & Person Specification.

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes