Head of Service - Corporate Parenting

8 Month Contract With A local Authority

To provide strategic and operational leadership for Corporate Parenting services, ensuring children in care, care experienced young people, foster carers, kinship carers, and families receive high-quality, effective, and relationship-based support.

The postholder will lead services across children in care, fostering, kinship care, permanence, and preparation for adulthood, ensuring children and young people experience stable placements, strong relationships, effective care planning, and timely pathways to permanence.

As a senior leader within Children’s Services, the postholder will provide visible, restorative, and child-centred leadership, driving continuous improvement in practice, performance, quality, and outcomes. They will ensure the Council fulfils its corporate parenting responsibilities and that the voices, wishes, and lived experiences of children and young people are central to service development and decision making.

The postholder will work collaboratively with senior leaders, elected members, practitioners, carers, children and young people, and partner agencies to strengthen corporate parenting arrangements and improve outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for Corporate Parenting services, ensuring high-quality support and positive outcomes for children in care, care experienced young people, families, foster carers, and kinship carers.
  


• Lead service improvement across children in care, fostering, kinship care, permanence, and preparation for adulthood.
  


• Develop and implement strategies that deliver measurable improvements in practice, performance, quality, and outcomes.
  


• Ensure effective oversight of care planning, permanence, placement stability, pathway planning, transitions to adulthood, and the achievement of positive outcomes for children and young people.
  


• Promote a strong corporate parenting culture across the Council, ensuring all relevant services understand and fulfil their responsibilities towards children in care and care experienced young people.
  


• Ensure statutory duties and responsibilities relating to Corporate Parenting are met consistently and effectively.
  


• Use performance data, quality assurance activity, audit findings, inspection outcomes, complaints, feedback, and other intelligence to identify areas for improvement and drive service development.
  


• Champion restorative, strengths-based, trauma-informed, and relationship-based approaches to practice.
  


• Promote high professional standards and ensure practice is child-centred, evidence-informed, and focused on achieving positive outcomes.
  


• Lead workforce development and support the development of a confident, capable, motivated, and reflective workforce.
  


• Ensure children and young people’s wishes, feelings, voices, and lived experiences meaningfully influence service development, decision making, care planning, and quality assurance.
  


• Work closely with education, health, housing, employment, voluntary sector, and other partners to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities for children in care and care experienced young people.
  


• Strengthen partnership working with foster carers, kinship carers, families, practitioners, and external agencies.
  


• Provide effective leadership and oversight of complex safeguarding, placement, performance, quality, workforce, and resource issues.
  


• Contribute to the wider strategic leadership and development of Children’s Services.
  


• Fulfil the responsibilities of Agency Decision Maker in accordance with relevant legislation, regulations, and Council procedures.
  


• Lead significant resource management, ensuring services are delivered effectively, efficiently, and within agreed budgets.
  


• Provide strong leadership during periods of change, improvement, inspection, and service transformation.
  


• Ensure effective governance, risk management, quality assurance, and performance management arrangements are in place.
  


• Work closely with elected members and senior officers to provide assurance on Corporate Parenting performance, risks, priorities, and improvement activity.
  


• Represent the Council and Children’s Services at relevant strategic partnerships, boards, forums, and external meetings.
  


• Promote equality, diversity, inclusion, and anti-discriminatory practice across all Corporate Parenting services.
  


• Undertake other duties appropriate to the level and responsibilities of the role as directed by senior management.
  

Requirements

Essential

• Recognised Social Work qualification.
  


• Current registration with Social Work England.
  


• Significant post-qualifying professional development relevant to statutory children and family social work, safeguarding leadership, Corporate Parenting, and service development.
  


• Management or leadership qualification, or equivalent demonstrable senior leadership experience.
  


• Significant senior management experience within statutory children’s social care.
  


• Extensive knowledge of legislation, statutory guidance, regulations, and policy relating to children in care, care experienced young people, fostering, kinship care, permanence, and preparation for adulthood.
  


• Significant experience of leading and improving Corporate Parenting services or comparable statutory children’s social care services.
  


• Strong experience of managing complex safeguarding, placement, performance, quality, workforce, and resource pressures.
  


• Demonstrable experience of leading service improvement and delivering measurable improvements in practice and outcomes.
  


• Strong understanding of effective care planning, permanence, placement stability, pathway planning, and transitions to adulthood.
  


• Experience of using performance data, audit, quality assurance, inspection findings, and feedback to drive service improvement.
  


• Experience of leading and developing professional teams within a complex statutory environment.
  


• Strong understanding of corporate parenting responsibilities and the importance of cross-Council ownership.
  


• Ability to develop effective relationships with children and young people, elected members, senior leaders, practitioners, carers, and partner agencies.
  


• Excellent strategic leadership, communication, influencing, and decision-making skills.
  


• Ability to manage significant budgets and resources effectively.
  


• Strong commitment to relationship-based, restorative, strengths-based, and child-centred practice.
  


• Ability to operate effectively at a senior level while maintaining a clear focus on frontline practice and outcomes for children and young people.
  

Desirable

• Experience of acting as or undertaking Agency Decision Maker responsibilities.
  


• Experience of leading fostering, kinship care, permanence, or leaving care services.
  


• Experience of working through Ofsted inspection, improvement, or transformation activity.
  


• Evidence of successful partnership working across education, health, housing, and other agencies.
  


• Experience of developing and implementing Corporate Parenting strategies and governance arrangements.
  


• Further leadership, management, or professional qualifications relevant to the role.
  

Performance Standards

The postholder will be expected to:

• Provide strong, visible, and values-led leadership across Corporate Parenting services.
  


• Ensure children in care and care experienced young people receive high-quality, consistent, and child-centred support.
  


• Deliver measurable improvements in service performance, quality, placement stability, permanence, and outcomes.
  


• Ensure children and young people’s voices and lived experiences are central to decision making and service improvement.
  


• Maintain high professional standards and a strong culture of accountability, learning, and continuous improvement.
  


• Ensure statutory duties and Corporate Parenting responsibilities are effectively discharged.
  


• Build strong relationships across the Council and with external partners and carers.
  


• Use evidence, performance information, audit, inspection findings, and lived experience to inform strategic decisions.
  


• Manage risk, resources, and workforce pressures effectively while maintaining a clear focus on outcomes.
  


• Promote a culture where children and young people are listened to, respected, supported, and enabled to thrive throughout childhood and into adulthood.