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About the Role

As one of two Heads of Service in Family Help, you will play a pivotal leadership role in shaping, coordinating, and continuously improving Harrow’s Family Help system, with a specific focus on adolescent and youth offer, including Harrow’s Youth Justice Service. You will lead Harrow’s Family Help Teams to deliver timely, effective, and proportionate support, improving outcomes and life chances for children and families, particularly the most vulnerable. This role is crucial in aligning the local Family Help system with Harrow’s wider Children’s Reforms Programmes and the Children’s Social Care National Framework, helping to shape emerging services and ensure integration with partners.

Responsibilities

Providing high-quality leadership of Family Help Teams to ensure the highest professional practice and an integrated approach to adolescent and family help.
Creating and maintaining multi-agency working and developing collaborative relationships with partners to ensure children and young people are supported and safeguarded.
Ensuring children's assessments and plans have clear priorities, are of good quality, and focus on the child's needs.
Driving forward key priorities and values of the service in collaboration with the wider Children’s Services Leadership Team.
Championing strengths-based, relationship-based, and family-led practice with a focus on early intervention, prevention, and sustainable outcomes.
Using performance insight, audit, quality assurance, and professional curiosity to drive continuous improvement and support confident decision-making.
Working collaboratively with senior leaders and partners to strengthen safeguarding responses, manage risk effectively, and promote inclusive, culturally competent practice.

Requirements

A recognised Social Work qualification and registration with Social Work England.
Substantial experience in children’s services, including leadership of child in need, safeguarding, adolescent services, and youth justice practice.
Strong knowledge of safeguarding legislation, statutory guidance, thresholds, information-sharing, and multi-agency decision-making.
Proven ability to lead service improvement, strengthen practice quality, and use performance information to evaluate impact.
Experience of managing people, budgets, and resources effectively within a complex service environment.
Excellent communication and partnership skills, with the ability to engage confidently with staff, senior leaders, elected members, schools, partners, and communities.
A strong commitment to equality, anti-racist & culturally competent practice, professional curiosity, and improving outcomes for children, young people, and families.

Skills

Leadership
Strategic thinking
Resilience
Children's social care
Safeguarding
Partnership working
Risk management
High-quality practice
Developing managers and practitioners
Evidence-informed practice
Child-centred practice
Data analysis
Performance management
Communication
Interpersonal skills
Equality and diversity
Cultural competence
Professional curiosity

Location

London Borough of Harrow

Work Type

Full-time

Experience Level

Leadership experience
Substantial experience in children's services

Education Level

Recognised Social Work qualification

About the Company

The London Borough of Harrow is undertaking an ambitious programme of Children’s Services reform, including Families First, Best Start Family Hubs, Best Start in Life, and SEND reforms.
Our ambition is to help every child thrive by reshaping support for children, young people, and families across the borough.
Through the Families First Programme, we are developing a practice system centered on relationships, family decision-making, and early multi-disciplinary help.

Equal Opportunity

A strong commitment to equality, anti-racist & culturally competent practice.