MACE and Contextual Safeguarding Officer

North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (NYSCP) brings together senior leaders from the local authority, police, health and wider partners to ensure that children and young people in North Yorkshire are safeguarded and their welfare is promoted.

We are a strong and ambitious partnership, focused on improving outcomes for children and families through effective multi‑agency working, robust challenge and a shared commitment to learning and improvement.

Our work is underpinned by the Being Young in North Yorkshire Strategy 2025–28 and our Multi‑Agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASA), which set out how we work together to meet our statutory responsibilities and respond to emerging risks, including child exploitation and extra‑familial harm.

Hybrid working is available for this post.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a high‑performing safeguarding system and play a pivotal role in protecting children and young people from exploitation and contextual safeguarding risks.

As the MACE and Contextual Safeguarding Officer, you will lead and coordinate key multi‑agency arrangements across North Yorkshire, including chairing Multi‑Agency Child Exploitation (MACE) Level 2 meetings and the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) Panel.

You will operate at the interface of strategy and practice, ensuring that partnership plans to address child exploitation, modern slavery, and broader contextual safeguarding concerns are robust, timely and effective.

This role provides a unique opportunity to:

• Influence how agencies work together to reduce harm outside the home
• Provide constructive challenge and hold partners to account for safeguarding outcomes
• Ensure the voices of children, young people and families shape how services respond to exploitation

• Chairing and coordinating MACE Level 2 and NRM Panel meetings, ensuring effective multi‑agency participation and decision‑making
• Monitoring the effectiveness of multi‑agency plans to reduce the risk of child exploitation and extra‑familial harm
• Providing independent scrutiny and challenge to ensure plans are SMART, timely and lead to measurable reductions in risk
• Leading on quality assurance activity, including audits and reviews of MACE and NRM arrangements, to inform partnership improvement
• Supporting workforce development by delivering advice, guidance and training on child exploitation, contextual safeguarding and the NRM
• Building strong relationships across statutory and non‑statutory partners to strengthen collaboration and overcome barriers to effective multi‑agency working
• Ensuring that the voice and lived experience of children and families is central to decision‑making and service development
• Producing high‑quality analytical reports to inform strategic oversight and assurance across the partnership

We are looking for someone who is passionate about protecting children and improving outcomes through strong partnership working and effective system leadership.

You will bring:

• A strong understanding of safeguarding practice, child exploitation and contextual safeguarding, alongside relevant legislation and national guidance
• Experience of working within safeguarding or multi‑agency environments, including chairing professional meetings and influencing practice
• Confidence to provide constructive challenge and hold partners to account to ensure high standards of safeguarding practice
• The ability to analyse complex information and translate it into clear insights, reports and actions
• Strong communication and relationship‑building skills, with the ability to work across organisational boundaries
• A commitment to anti‑discriminatory practice and ensuring children’s voices are heard

You will also be highly organised, able to manage competing priorities, and confident in working within a complex and evolving system.

This is an opportunity to:

• Work at the forefront of contextual safeguarding and child exploitation across a large, multi‑agency system
• Influence strategic and operational responses to extra‑familial harm
• Play a key role in strengthening partnership quality assurance and improving outcomes for children
• Be part of a supportive, ambitious and forward‑thinking safeguarding partnership

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Kathryn Morrison, Business Unit Manager, North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership. kathry

• NYSCP website
• BeAware Child Exploitation Hub
• Child Exploitation and Contextual Safeguarding Strategy

Closing date: 13th July 2026