Career opportunities Participation Lead - Children and Families

Team: Children’s Services Quality Assurance
Job Family: Supporting - CBG11
Salary: £41,042  - £44,296 per annum pro rata
Hours: 37 hours per week
Location: You will be expected to attend a CBC office location as often as needed to carry out your role, which will be no less than once per month.
Contract Type: Hybrid - Permanent 
Closing Date: 20th July 2026
Interview Date: 28th July 2026

About the Role

Central Bedfordshire Council is seeking an experienced Participation Lead, to lead and implement the participation strategy across children’s social care. This is a role that will sit at the very centre of our quality assurance team, providing parents and children with opportunities to have a genuine voice in the services that affect them. 

Working closely with the Family Meeting, Advocacy and Mediation service, this role develops parent and child advocacy, leads co-production activity and ensures that feedback from children, young people and families directly shapes practice and service development as part of the Families First reforms.  You will be responsible for developing opportunities for meaningful participation with children and families who are supported with child in need plans, child protection plans and are supported by our edge of care teams, using innovative approaches to hear from seldom heard voices.

You will act as the lead practitioner in promoting participation activity, ensuring this leads to tangible change and service improvement.  You will work closely with practitioners across the local authority, with elected members and statutory safeguarding partners, to promote the voices of children in our care and influence change. This will include leading the Children in Care Council and Care Experienced Forums. The post holder will need to be flexible to evening and weekend working, as required, with the ability to support on an annual residential trip.

You will have line management responsibility for one participation worker, with the potential for further expansion as the role develops.  As the participation lead, you will develop and manage a programme of participation events and projects, including the Young Inspectors Programme and the annual celebration for looked after and care-experienced children and young people.

This is an exciting time to join us. Children and Families Services have been recognised as ‘Good’ by Ofsted in 2025. We are proud of our relationship-based practice, high performance, and culture of learning and development.

Our Offer

We have a number of rewards and benefits available to our staff, to view these please visit our Rewards and Benefits page

Our aspiration is to be a truly flexible employer.  We welcome discussion on location, hours and working pattern as part of the application process.

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 You will be expected to demonstrate how you meet the key accountabilities and competencies in this Recruitment Pack.

 Our Competency Framework and Qualification Guidance are to be read in conjunction with our Recruitment Pack.

For an informal discussion about this position, please contact: Kirstie Baughan at [email protected] or call 300 300 4706.

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 Safeguarding: 

Central Bedfordshire Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees, volunteers and contractors to share this commitment. This post is subject to the disclosure of criminal records.  

 To maintain a fair and consistent approach for applicants, it is Central Bedfordshire Council's policy to only consider applications made via our online application system and we therefore thank you for not submitting your application offline.

 Our National Careers Service team offer a free monthly workshop covering CV writing and how to complete the statement sections of the Central Bedfordshire Council online application form. This MS Teams workshop is open to anyone from the UK and lasts around 1.5 hours.   Please book your place here.

 More information about this service can be found here: Support getting into work or learning | Central Bedfordshire Council

Please note we are unable to offer sponsorship for our roles. Successful applicants that may require a visa will need to consider the options for obtaining and/or maintaining the legal right to live and work in the UK for the duration of the contract offered. 

All new starters will join us on a four‑month probationary period. During this time, if you are offered a Hybrid role you will be required to attend a Central Bedfordshire Council office location more frequently to support thorough and well‑supported onboarding into your role. Please keep this in mind if you anticipate extensive travel to Central Bedfordshire.