Head of Family - West and Breckland

Head of Family Help – West & Breckland | 11434 | Permanent Contract | 37 hours per week | 68,323 to 76,235 per annum | Grade N | Norwich Hello, I’m Jen Dewar, Assistant Director for Family Help, Child Protection & MASH, and I am delighted to announce an exciting senior leadership opportunity as Head of Family Help for West and Breckland.

Over recent years, we have successfully embedded Family Help as well as multidisciplinary ways of working throughout our services. This approach ensures that children, families, and practitioners benefit from truly collaborative support, delivered by teams with a diverse range of expertise.

Our approach brings together multi-disciplinary teams who work collaboratively to meet the needs of children and families, placing relationships, direct work, and extended family support at the heart of what we do. Our practice aligns with the ambitions of the National Children’s Social Care Review (2022) and we champion the ambitions of the DfE's Families First partnership programme. We are proud that Norfolk’s pioneering model has helped inform and enhance the development and implementation of these reforms.

This new way of working has demonstrated sustained and improved outcomes for our children, families and practitioners alike.  We are now an Outstanding local authority and be part of one of the strongest children’s services in the country. Following our recent Ofsted inspection, inspectors found that children in Norfolk receive “consistently strong services that impact positively on their and their families’ lives.”

They described our practice as “child centred” and highlighted a culture where “children and care leavers come first.”We are incredibly ambitious for our children in the county, and our approach is designed to ensure that the right help is wrapped around at the earliest possible point and families are not passed around, referred on or transferred, but maintain a continuity of relationships we know make a real difference.

We place a strong emphasis on parity of esteem, valuing all roles and skillsets within our multidisciplinary teams. This enables us to celebrate the benefits of collaborative working and maintain shared accountability for delivering the very best outcomes for those we support. As Head of Family Help for West and Breckland, you will play a crucial role in providing strategic leadership, shaping the service, and ensuring a joined-up, multi-agency approach to supporting families.

You will work collaboratively with your partner Head of Family Help, with each area overseen by two Heads of Service, capitalising on the potential of joint decision-making to support both staff and families. Your passion, values and leadership will be key to delivering high-quality, inclusive services that make a lasting difference. You will work closely with colleagues and partners across the system, championing integration with our early help offer and driving forward continuous improvement.

We welcome applications from both social work qualified and non-social work qualified individuals who demonstrate strong leadership and commitment to supporting children and families. If you are motivated by the opportunity to make a real impact and share our commitment to outstanding support for children and families, we invite you to apply. Before you apply, we recommend reading the full

Job Description and Person Specification to help you demonstrate you meet the criteria.

For an informal discussion, please contact me, Jen Dewar, Assistant Director for Family Help & Child Protection, at  to arrange a conversation. Please submit your CV and a supporting letter detailing how you meet the person specification.

We are committed to equality and inclusion, and welcome…