Service Manager - Family HelpCouncil

City of York is seeking an exceptional and motivated Service Manager (Social Work Qualified) to lead one of our Family Help teams here in York!

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a team within the newly formed Family Help service in York. The role will involve directly managing Practice Supervisors and Senior Social Workers whilst you work together to support a team of Family Help Lead Practitioners – both social work qualified and alternatively qualified.

You will be managing a team of workers who are supporting children at targeted early support level through to Child in Need, Child Protection, Pre-Proceedings and through the court process. You will oversee complex cases, offer support, guidance and supervision for children at significant risk of harm and will help balance risk and safety for those children open in your service alongside your Practice Supervisors. You will also be responsible for managing performance to ensure that your service is offering consistently high quality services to the children in York.

As a Service Manager, you will provide strong and inspirational leadership to a highly skilled team, ensuring children receive timely, relationship-based interventions that help them achieve positive outcomes. You will champion a strengths-based and restorative approach, promoting high-quality practice that builds safety through family networks, trusted relationships and effective multi-agency collaboration.

This role sits at the forefront of the national Families First Partnership Programme, contributing to the development of integrated Family Help and safeguarding services. You will play a key role in embedding the Families First principles across practice, ensuring children and families receive the right support at the right time through coordinated, child-centred interventions that strengthen family resilience and reduce the need for statutory intervention wherever possible.

We are looking for a qualified social work professional with a passion for improving outcomes for children affected by exploitation, contextual safeguarding concerns and extra-familial harm. You will bring strong leadership skills, professional curiosity and a commitment to continuous improvement. Alongside providing effective supervision and support to staff, you will drive high standards of practice, promote professional development and create a culture of learning, reflection and innovation.

As the Service Manager in Family Help, you will hold overall responsibility for the service, providing both operational and strategic leadership. You will play a significant role in shaping local policy, strategy and service development as well as support Practice Supervisors to manage and develop practice and performance within your team.

At the heart of our work in York is our Building Brighter Futures practice model, which promotes a relational, strengths-based, systemic and restorative approach. This includes systemic practice, a strong commitment to family group decision-making, and developing expertise in supporting families where there is domestic abuse through our Safe and Together approach.

Our practice model is underpinned by Signs of Safety, a collaborative and solution-focused approach that helps families and professionals work together to identify strengths, build sustainable safety and achieve meaningful change.

We are proud to be rated Outstanding by Ofsted, recognising the strength of our leadership, our ambitious vision for children and our unwavering commitment to achieving the best possible outcomes for families. We are equally committed to developing and nurturing strong leaders.

As this role is public facing, applicants will need to demonstrate, at interview, their competency to converse and provide advice and guidance to members of the public, in spoken English to CEFR level C1: Can express themselves fluently and spontaneously, almost effortlessly. Only a conceptually difficult subject can hinder a natural, smooth flow of language.

Hybrid working arrangements are available for this role. Each role at CYC is different and your working arrangements will be determined based on the requirements of the role and in collaboration with you and your needs as part of the recruitment process. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team.

City of York Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment. We require the successful candidate to undertake an enhanced Criminal Record check via the Disclosure and Barring Service.

The Council is highly committed to investing in the talent and wellbeing of our staff and can offer a generous annual leave allowance, access to the Local Government Pension Scheme, comprehensive Health & Wellbeing initiatives and a reward package which recognises your contribution.

We can offer flexible working practices, community engagement and volunteer activities and, as part of our commitment to you, promote continuous Learning & Development.

In addition we also offer a growing range of discounts, rewards and savings.

For further information or an informal discussion please contact Cat Middleton at: [email protected] 

Closing date: Wednesday 7 October 2026 at 12 midnight

Interview date: w/c 19/10/2026