Service Manager: Children in Care

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.

This post will cover East Staffordshire.

Main Responsibilities

As Service Manager – Children in Care, you will provide operational leadership across services supporting children in care and young people preparing for adulthood. You will ensure children receive safe, stable and high-quality care, while leading teams, developing partnerships and driving continuous improvement to help children achieve positive long-term outcomes.

You will:

• Lead and manage Children in Care teams, ensuring high-quality practice, effective care planning and positive outcomes for children and young people.
• Drive placement stability and permanence planning, helping children access the right care and support at the right time.
• Build strong partnerships with health, education, housing, police, carers and community organisations to deliver coordinated support.
• Monitor performance, quality assurance and service standards, using insight and learning to improve practice and outcomes.
• Lead, motivate and develop managers and teams, creating a culture of high performance, accountability and continuous learning.
• Manage resources, budgets and service improvement projects to ensure effective, sustainable and child-focused services.

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

• Qualified and registered Social Worker.
• Substantial experience in managing teams within children's social care within a multi-agency environment.
• Significant knowledge, understanding and experience of working with relevant legislation, policy and procedures relating to children in care.
• In-depth understanding of statutory frameworks, national agendas and best practice for children in care.
• Experience of successfully developing and monitoring performance frameworks, quality assurance processes and reporting.

Interviews will be held in person
- Date to be confirmed

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

Please note:

The minimum essential criteria in the ideal candidate section detailed above will be used if you are applying under one of our Interview Guarantee Schemes.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created…