Service Manager: Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams; MACPT

Our Children and Families services and our vision here in Staffordshire is rooted in four core principles that underpin everything we do:

• Families first – network and community always
• Right help, right time – proportionate, timely and co-produced with children and families
• Whole-system responsibility for supporting children and families to be happy, healthy and safe
• Permanence as belonging from day one

To achieve our ambition, we have taken a bold decision to transform our service structure and we’re looking for talented, values-driven leaders who can champion these principles, inspire others and help shape the future of Children and Families services in Staffordshire.

We want to create a more resilient, child-centred and future-focused system that enables children, young people and families to receive the right help at the right time.

Through this redesign, we are strengthening leadership, increasing capacity and creating clearer lines of accountability across our services. These changes will support high-quality practice, stronger partnerships and better outcomes for children and families, while ensuring we are well positioned to respond to national reforms and future challenges.

The MACPT Service Manager role is a brand new exciting role with the opportunity to influence, shape and lead the introduction of MACPT's across Staffordshire. As a Service Manager you will:

• Develop and then lead the strategic and operational delivery of the Multi-Agency Child Protection Team (MACPT), ensuring high-quality, child-centred safeguarding practice and compliance with statutory responsibilities.
• Provide leadership, supervision and support to Team Managers and multi-agency staff, promoting reflective practice, professional curiosity, accountability and continuous workforce development.
• Develop and maintain effective partnerships with social care, police, health, education, legal services, Family Help, Cafcass and other stakeholders to ensure coordinated and robust safeguarding interventions.
• Oversee statutory child protection processes, including strategy discussions, Section 47 enquiries, joint assessments, safety planning, Child Protection Conferences and case progression.
• Monitor service performance, quality assurance activity and safeguarding outcomes, using audits, reviews, inspection findings and feedback to drive continuous improvement.
• Lead service development, transformation and change initiatives, ensuring the MACPT model remains effective, evidence-based and aligned with national reforms and local priorities.
• Ensure effective management of resources, budgets, risks and operational performance to deliver safe, timely and efficient safeguarding services.
• Champion the voice, lived experience and rights of children and young people, ensuring they influence assessment, planning, decision-making and service development.
• Promote consistent safeguarding thresholds, effective step-up and step-down arrangements, and strong multi-agency decision-making across the children's safeguarding system.
• Lead on learning and improvement arising from audits, litigation claims, Rapid Reviews, Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (CSPRs) and serious incidents, supporting the embedding of lessons across services.

The minimum criteria that will be used to shortlist for this role will be:

• Qualified and registered Social Worker with a degree-level qualification and significant leadership/management experience within Children's Social Care.
• Substantial experience leading teams in a multi-agency safeguarding environment
  , with responsibility for child protection, risk management and statutory interventions.
• In-depth knowledge of relevant legislation, statutory frameworks and safeguarding…