Head of Service

Head of Service

Location: Lavender Street, Brighton, BN2 1JU.

Salary: £68,949 – £75,505 per annum.

Contractual hours: 37 per week.

Job reference: REQ0000744.

About the Role

This pivotal senior leadership role sets the strategic direction and delivery of the Care Leavers and Separated Children services. It provides executive oversight of managers, pods and small teams of social workers and personal advisers, ensuring high quality, trauma‑informed, relationship‑based practice.

• Supervise managers responsible for pods, social worker teams and personal advisers.
• Deliver and shape strategy for care leaver and separated child services.
• Collaborate with the Senior Leadership Team and provide cover across the Family Help & Protection service.
• Lead through significant transformation, including Families First reform and regional fostering arrangements.
• Balance strategic leadership with operational delivery, maintaining strong performance while driving innovation, improvement and service development.
• Maintain focus on quality, outcomes, and a child‑centred, anti‑discriminatory approach.

About you

You bring:

• Recognised social work qualification and registration with Social Work England.
• Substantial management experience in child social care, with a track record in service development, partnership working and workforce leadership.
• Strong financial and service planning skills and experience managing complex services.
• Ability to translate strategy into excellent day‑to‑day practice.
• Experience leading teams through change with clarity, compassion and inspirational confidence.
• Strong social work values, political awareness and the ability to keep children and carers at the heart of decision‑making.

What we offer

• Competitive salary.
• Career average pension scheme.
• Rental deposit loan scheme.
• 27 days annual leave.
• Flexible working arrangements.
• Childcare voucher scheme.

Encouraging a diverse workforce

We are committed to building a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We particularly encourage applications from BME or White Other backgrounds, those who identify as disabled, male or trans, and anyone who identifies as different from the majority.

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