Barnardo's is seeking a skilled and ambitious Children's Services Manager to lead a diverse and high-impact portfolio of services across the Midlands.

This is a unique opportunity to oversee a broad range of provision supporting children, young people and families with varying and often complex needs. The postholder will lead services including Warwickshire BASE, which provides targeted support to improve emotional wellbeing, resilience and engagement with education; the Household Support Fund, delivering practical support to families experiencing financial hardship; Pathway to Potential, offering early help and targeted interventions to strengthen family resilience and relationships; and Wolverhampton Power 2, supporting children and young people to develop confidence, emotional wellbeing and life skills.

In addition, the role includes oversight of Dudley Advocacy, which ensures children and young people's voices are heard through independent advocacy, as well as Sandwell SENDIASS and Warwickshire SENDIASS, both of which provide impartial information, advice and support to children, young people and families navigating special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) systems.

This varied portfolio spans early help, targeted support, SEND services, advocacy and community-based provision. It requires a confident and adaptive leader able to operate across different service models, funding streams and local authority areas.

Key responsibilities include:

Providing strategic and operational leadership across a multi-service, multi-area portfolio
Ensuring high standards of safeguarding, quality, and performance across all services
Leading and developing multidisciplinary teams delivering a range of interventions and support
Overseeing service contracts, budgets and compliance within differing commissioning frameworks
Building strong partnerships with local authorities and key stakeholders across Warwickshire, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell
Driving service development, innovation and continuous improvement
Ensuring the voices of children, young people and families shape delivery and design

About you:

Significant experience managing diverse children's services, ideally across multiple local authority areas
Strong leadership capability with experience of leading managers and dispersed teams
Knowledge of SEND, advocacy, early help and family support services
Experience of working in complex, multi-agency environments and managing external partnerships
A track record of delivering against performance, quality and contractual requirements
A passion for improving outcomes for children and tackling inequality

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a complex and rewarding portfolio, making a meaningful difference to children and families across multiple communities.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

Barnardo's require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)

Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
Service related sick pay from day 1
Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
Cycle2work scheme
Interest free season ticket loans
Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
20% discount at Barnardo's stores
Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

Reference number:23207
Job Title:Children's Services Manager - Midlands
Location:Birmingham, Warwickshire, Worcester and Sandwell
Locality:Midlands
Contract type:Permanent
Hours:37
Salary:£42,856 - £54,240
Closing Date:25 June 2026
Interview Date:TBC

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Children's Services Manager - Midlands

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