Associate Director of Children's Services SHG0305

Location

Chestnut Tree House

Vacancy Type

Full Time/Permanent

Pay Range

Grade 9 - £65,724 - £69,983 (DOE) Pro rata for part time roles

Contracted Hours

37.5 hours per week

Application Deadline

Friday, September 18, 2026

Job Profile

Job Profile document

Job Summary

About the role

As our Associate Director of Children’s Services, you have a key role to play in the leadership, operational management, and strategic direction of Chestnut Tree House. We are looking for an individual who shares our passion for excellence, innovation and continuous improvement. Whether through clinical leadership, service development, strengthening quality standards or supporting our workforce, this role offers a unique opportunity to make a significant contribution to our future.

At the heart of everything we do is a commitment to kindness, respect, integrity and collaboration. We want every colleague to feel valued, supported and empowered to reach their full potential while delivering the very best outcomes for those in our care.

As a leader within Southern Hospice Group, you will:

• Lead the planning, performance and delivery of Children’s services, holding accountability for quality, patient outcomes, financial control, income and contract compliance.
• Build and sustain strong partnerships with commissioners and system partners, developing and negotiating proposals that expand service reach and impact.
• Lead service improvement and innovation and share learning across the organisation.
• Provide visible, values-led people leadership, creating a culture of accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement across all teams.

You'll be

• Passionate advocate for babies, children and young people
• Child and family centred
• Significant experience in children's palliative/end of life care or children with complex care needs
• Compassionate but accountable leader
• Strategic but operationally grounded
• Professional curiosity, always seeing ways to innovate and improve
• Track record of effective performance management across quality, workforce, operations and finance
• Effective communicator, able to influence and build strong teams
• Experience of leading and supporting teams through change
• Builds effective relationships with key stakeholders across the group and externally
• Confidence in financial leadership, including budget management, income generation and commercial decision making.
• Proven ability to influence and partner with commissioners and system stakeholders
• Highly developed people leadership skills, with the ability to engage, motivate and develop the workforce and build strong teams.

About us

Southern Hospice Group is the largest group of hospices in Sussex and one of the largest in the UK. We are committed to providing exceptional and compassionate care to adults, children and their families across Sussex. Bringing our teams and resources together as one organisation means we can focus on new and exciting visions and plans for our people and patients and provide even greater opportunities for our workforce.

St Barnabas House provides specialist palliative care to adults in the Worthing, Adur, Arun and Henfield areas through a range of services, including in-patient care and community living well services.

Chestnut Tree House is the children’s hospice for East and West Sussex and South East Hampshire, providing specialist palliative care for children and young people with life-limiting conditions.

Martlets provides essential care to people affected by terminal illness in Brighton and Hove and surrounding areas. Our expert teams provide the very best care and support, helping patients and their loved ones to live life to the full during the precious time they have together.

Benefits

• Company pension scheme or NHS pension scheme for eligible employees
• Up to 35 days’ annual leave inclusive of bank holidays
• On-site education support and study leave opportunities
• Option to access Bupa and cover your everyday cost of healthcare for less
• Free parking, subsidised meals and various social activities
• Corporate rate gym membership, discounts with local complementary therapies and Blue Light Card
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Death in Service

We warmly welcome applications from all sections of our community. We also invite applications from suitably experienced people for all industry sectors who can demonstrate the skills, ability and enthusiasm to work with a people-centric organisation like ours.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Your application and interview should give us an accurate and authentic picture of your skills and experiences. Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Before you submit an application, we will ask you to confirm the information you provide is true and accurate.Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy before the published closing date where applicant volume is high.

Some of our roles are subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it may be necessary for a disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.