SVP of Education, Youth Services & Compliance

Senior Vice President of Education, Youth Services & Compliance

Our mission and core values are brought to life through our culture. At the YMCA of South Hampton Roads, we strive to live our cause of strengthening communities with purpose and intentionality every day.

We are welcoming: we are open to all and create spaces where people can belong and become.

We are genuine: we value people and embrace individuality.

We are hopeful: we believe in the potential of people to grow, lead and become catalysts for change.

We are nurturing: we support individuals throughout their journey to reach their full potential.

We are determined: above all else, we are on a relentless quest to make our community stronger, beginning with our people.

Our culture is not a People & Culture initiative; it is how we lead, serve, develop talent, make decisions and deliver on the YMCA's mission.

Reporting to the Chief Operations Officer, the Senior Vice President of Education, Youth Services & Compliance provides enterprise leadership for the quality, safety, compliance, and continuous improvement of youth-serving programs across the YMCA of South Hampton Roads. The role connects educational excellence and operational strategy with rigorous child protection, licensing, accreditation, and organizational risk practices to ensure safe, consistent, high-quality experiences for children and families.

This highly visible leader sets association-wide standards for early learning, school-age care, camp, teen and other youth programs; leads Praesidium accreditation and child protection strategy; strengthens regulatory and operational consistency across sites; and partners with Operations and executive leadership to identify risks, improve systems, and advance sustainable growth. The SVP also builds external partnerships and develops leaders and staff to ensure safety, quality, and compliance are embedded into everyday operations rather than treated as separate initiatives.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President are the Vice President of Youth Development, Association Director of Youth Development, Association Director of Transportation, and the Youth Development Training Director.

Education & Youth Program Quality

• Provide strategic leadership for the quality, growth, and continuous improvement of early learning, preschool, school-age care, camp, and other youth development programs across the Association.
• Establish consistent educational and program-quality standards grounded in developmental research, YMCA practices, community needs, and measurable outcomes.
• Partner with operational leaders to strengthen program design, curriculum, participant experience, and site-level execution while balancing quality, accessibility, and sustainability.
• Use program, licensing, safety, and participant data to identify trends, address gaps, and guide continuous improvement across youth-serving programs.

Child Protection, Compliance & Organizational Risk

• Lead the Association's child protection and organizational risk strategy, proactively identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks that could impact participants, team members, volunteers, operations, or organizational assets.
• Provide executive oversight of state child care licensing, applicable health and safety requirements, YMCA standards, and other regulatory obligations across youth-serving sites.
• Lead the strategy, readiness, evidence collection, and continuous improvement required to maintain Praesidium accreditation and sustain a culture of abuse prevention.
• Standardize and continuously improve policies, procedures, safety protocols, screening practices, supervision expectations, and other controls that reduce site-to-site variability and strengthen organizational protection.

Safety Culture, Incident Response & Readiness

• Build and sustain a culture in which child safety is a shared leadership responsibility and team members and volunteers are equipped to recognize concerns, report risks, and act appropriately.
• Lead youth-related escalations and serious incident response, including coordination of internal reviews, mandated reporting, executive communication, and post-incident learning as appropriate.
• Advance prevention strategies addressing adult-to-youth and youth-to-youth abuse, bullying, boundary concerns, supervision, and other emerging safety risks.
• Ensure leaders and youth-facing staff receive practical, high-impact training and reinforcement in child protection, risk management, emergency response, regulatory compliance, and educational excellence.

Enterprise Partnership & Community Leadership

• Serve as a strategic advisor to the Chief Operations Officer and executive leadership on youth development quality, organizational risk, child protection, compliance, and emerging issues that may affect strategy or operations.
• Partner closely with Operations, People & Culture, Legal, Finance, and other functions to translate standards into sustainable practices, strengthen accountability, and address cross-functional risks.…