Registered Manager

Registered Manager – Children’s Residential Home (4 Bed EBD)

Are you a resilient and experienced Registered Manager, passionate about making a real difference in the lives of vulnerable children and young people?

Southampton City Council is seeking a dedicated and experienced Registered Manager. This is an exciting and rare opportunity to help shape, develop and lead a new, high-quality children’s home in Southampton.

This is a pivotal role where you will ensure the home provides a safe, nurturing and supportive environment, enabling children and young people to thrive and achieve their potential.

The service will provide a home for up to four children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, offering a stable environment focused on providing long‑term stability and consistency. You will play a key role in ensuring positive placement matching and promoting the welfare of all children living in the home.

As the Registered Manager, you will have overall responsibility for the day‑to‑day operations of the home, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, delivering excellent care standards, and fostering a culture of respect, inclusion and empowerment.

• Leadership and Management: Lead, motivate and inspire a team of dedicated staff, embedding a positive culture and ensuring effective supervision, performance management, and continuous professional development.
• Compliance and Quality Assurance: Ensure full compliance with the Children’s Homes Regulations and Quality Standards, striving to achieve and sustain positive Ofsted ratings.
• Child‑Centred Care: Develop, implement and review high‑quality, individualised care plans that reflect the needs, aspirations and experiences of each child.
• Safeguarding: Maintain a strong safeguarding culture, ensuring all policies and procedures are followed and that children are always protected from harm.
• Placement and Matching: Take responsibility for placement decisions, ensuring careful assessment of risk, compatibility and need to promote stability and protect the welfare of all children in the home.
• Resilience and Practice Leadership: Model resilience and reflective practice, supporting staff to respond effectively to challenging behaviours and complex needs while maintaining high standards of care.
• Budget and Resource Management: Manage budgets and resources effectively to ensure the home operates sustainably and delivers value for money.
• Partnership Working: Build strong, collaborative relationships with families, social workers and partner agencies to ensure coordinated and holistic support for children.

We are looking for an exceptional leader who can demonstrate:

• Qualifications: NVQ Level 5 in Leadership and Management for Residential Childcare (or equivalent). Or willing to work towards.
• Experience: A proven track record of successfully managing a children’s home or similar setting, with clear evidence of achieving positive outcomes for children and young people.
• Regulatory Knowledge: Strong understanding of the Children’s Homes Regulations, Quality Standards and safeguarding frameworks.
• Fitness and Suitability (Regulation 28): The ability to meet the requirements of Regulation 28, demonstrating the integrity, experience, competence and leadership capability necessary to effectively manage a children’s home.
• Leadership
  
  Skills:
  
  Excellent organisational, leadership and communication skills, with the ability to develop, challenge and support a team.
• Resilience: High levels of personal and professional resilience, with the ability to remain calm, reflective and solutions‑focused in a demanding and dynamic environment.
• Commitment: A genuine passion for improving the lives of children and young people, with a strong child‑centred and trauma‑informed approach.

The salary band for this role is £57,755 – £65,222. The starting salary is £57,755 with annual progression through the salary bands.

Benefits include:

• Excellent local government pension with 15.2% employer contribution
• Death in service benefit of three times salary, and optional salary sacrifice shared cost AVC
• Generous holiday 25–31 days, based on role and service
• Flexible working options (role‑dependent)
• Family‑friendly policies – Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Shared/Unpaid Parental Leave, Time off for Dependents
• Training and development, including coaching and mentoring
• Health and wellbeing support – Employee Assistance Programme, Menopause Pledge, Mental Health First Aiders and access to a variety of staff networks
• Veteran‑friendly employer with the Armed Forces Covenant
• Retail discounts and savings through the Southampton City Council benefits platform
• Discounted memberships at local sports and fitness centres
• Sustainable travel benefits – low emission car scheme, cycle to work, season ticket loans
• Employee volunteering scheme with 2 paid days leave to volunteer