Family Help Team Manager - Prevention

Family Help Team Manager – Prevention (Children’s Services, Family Help, Protection and Care) | 11558 | Permanent Contract | 37 hours per week | £51,821 to £56,068 per annum | Grade L | County Hall, Norwich

Are you ready to help shape brilliant support for children, young people and families in Norfolk?

This is an exciting time to join Norfolk Children’s Services. In May 2026, Ofsted rated our Children’s Services as Outstanding in all areas, recognising our child-centred approach, strong relationships with children and young people, and inspirational strategic and operational leadership.

About the opportunity

We are looking for an experienced, confident and relationship-focused Family Help Team Manager – Prevention to join our Family Help, Protection and Care service. This is a rewarding opportunity to lead with purpose, support excellent practice and make sure children, young people and families receive the right help, at the right time, from the right people.

Working closely with the Protection Manager, you will help create the conditions for practitioners to do their very best work. You will lead day-to-day practice, support confident decision-making, champion staff development and wellbeing, and nurture a positive team culture where restorative, relationship-based and strengths-oriented practice can truly thrive.

Why this role matters

• Be part of an Outstanding Children’s Services department recognised by Ofsted for consistently strong services that make a positive difference to children and families.
• Lead and support a welcoming, multi-disciplinary Family Help team that puts children, young people and families at the centre of everything we do.
• Work within our practice vision, Vital Signs for Children, helping children to FLOURISH through relationships, strengths and outcomes.
• Bring your leadership, curiosity and creativity to a service that values ambition, collaboration, evidence-based practice, continuous improvement and kindness.
  

What you’ll bring to the role

• Provide supportive, visible and confident operational leadership across Family Help and Prevention practice.
• Work alongside the Protection Manager to support team performance, allocation, case oversight and timely intervention.
• Coach, supervise and develop practitioners through positive supervision, induction, probation and performance development planning.
• Use performance data, auditing and quality assurance activity to celebrate strengths, identify learning and drive improvement.
• Build trusted relationships with children, families, colleagues and partner agencies.
• Promote safe, restorative and solution-focused practice that helps children and families achieve positive and lasting outcomes.

Essential criteria

• Excellent interpersonal skills, with evidence of leading, motivating and supporting staff while driving positive change.
• Ability to make sound judgements under pressure and respond to complex or unusual situations with a clear rationale.
• Ability to chair meetings and work effectively with multi-disciplinary and multi-agency partners.
• Ability to model relationship-based and restorative practice and support others to understand and apply these principles.
• Ability to work to timescales and ensure timely, purposeful practice across the team.
• Strong commitment to equality, diversity and anti-discriminatory practice.
• Flexible, pragmatic and solution-focused approach to problem-solving with complex families.
• Evidence of frontline management experience in the UK, preferably within a large organisation.
• Experience of working with a variety of agencies and client groups to promote social inclusion and safety.
• Experience of designing and implementing processes and systems, including outcome monitoring.
• Experience of coaching, mentoring, training or leading groups.
• Detailed knowledge of relevant procedures, policies, legislation and regulations.
• At least four years’ experience working with children and families.
• Extensive knowledge and experience of child development, child and adolescent needs, parental needs including substance misuse, childhood trauma and the impact on parenting, and the experiences of children looked after by a local authority.
• A relevant qualification related to the role.

Ready to make a difference?
If you are a skilled and compassionate leader who can combine professional confidence with warmth, curiosity and a genuine commitment to helping families thrive, we would love to hear from you. This is your opportunity to join an ambitious, supportive and forward-thinking service where your leadership can help make a lasting difference for children, young people and families across Norfolk.

We know that considering a new role is a big decision, so we want you to feel welcomed, supported and excited about the opportunity ahead. If this sounds like the kind of team and service you would love to be part of, we would be delighted to receive your application.

Before you apply, we recommend reading the full Job Description and Person Specification to help you demonstrate you meet the criteria.

These are some benefits you can enjoy by working for Norfolk County Council:

• Competitive salary
• Generous holiday entitlement
• Health and Wellbeing services including fast-track physiotherapy and a free counselling service
• Flexible working opportunities including flexi-time, part time, remote and hybrid working – dependant on your job role and business need.
• Financial benefits such as:
  • ‘Norfolk Rewards’ our employee discounts programme which helps you save money on almost anything, from everyday groceries and clothes, to holidays, new technology, gym membership, trips to the cinema and days out.
  • A Blue Light card for Fire Service and Social Care Workers
  • Relocation expenses (where applicable)
  • An advance of your expenses if you travel for work
  • Local Government Pension Scheme with generous employer contribution, life assurance, death in service payments and dependants’ pensions.

  • Tax efficient ways of getting extra pension and new bikes

  • Access to our tax efficient car lease scheme for greener travel enabling you to lease a brand new, ultra-low emission vehicle (subject to eligibility)

  • A payment if you refer someone you know to a hard to fill job

You can also find information on our Terms and Conditions here.

Already a Norfolk County Council employee? See and apply for internal and external vacancies in myOracle using your @norfolk.gov.uk or @nccal.ac.uk email.

We would like to make you aware that priority consideration for this post may be given to current employees who are at risk due to restructure within the organisation or are in a redeployment position.

Redeployment closing date: 12 November 2026 at 23:55

All other applicants closing date: 22 November 2026 at 23:55