Director of Programmes and Policy

SHiFT’s Director of Programmes & Policy strategically and operationally directs the implementation and delivery of SHiFT through our SHiFT Practices and realises opportunities for SHiFT’s work to influence policy and practice reform. This is an exciting opportunity for someone driven by SHiFT’s Mission to break the destructive cycle of crime for children and young people, with the tenacity and skill to deliver innovation and translate learning from it to stimulate systems change within complex, multi-agency operational environments that include Children’s Social Care and Youth Justice. The Director of Programmes & Policy role is a new role for SHiFT, which has emerged because of our growth and the need to increase SHiFT’s strategic and operational capabilities. By welcoming a new senior leader, we want to ensure that we have enough capacity and capability to consistently deliver excellence through our Practices and to realise opportunities for continued innovation, growth, and influencing consistent with our mission to shift systems.

SHiFT’s Director of Programmes & Policy will obsess about the ‘what’ of our practice, holding overall responsibility for stewarding a SHiFT Practice from inception to scoping, mobilisation and launch, and then into effective delivery of each 18-month Programme cycle as we ‘infiltrate’ Host Organisations with the aim of shifting systems. Working differently with children and young people caught up in, or at risk of, cycles of crime, and doing so from an ‘insider-outsider’ position (where all our Practice colleagues are employed by public services rather than directly by SHiFT), is complex work. You and your small team of Practice Development Leads, led by our Head of Practices, will need to carefully hold the tension between consistency and flexibility, getting and staying closely alongside organisations that host SHiFT Practices as ‘critical friends’ to ensure that the SHiFT Commitments are met as we grow, learn and innovate.  You will need to be front footed and confident in using data to identify opportunities for improvement in implementation and design, sharing insights to inform the organisation’s strategic direction as part of SHiFT’s Senior Leadership Team and feeding them into relevant governance forums including SHiFT’s Practice Committee and Board of Trustees. You’ll be building on some good foundations for the programmatic aspect of your role, but we expect strengthening and embedding these foundations to be the focus of your work for the first year in post, above the policy focused aspects of this role.

To thrive in this Director of Programmes & Policy role you will be flexible, comfortable with ambiguity and iterative working, and have exceptional problem solving and relationship building skills. You’ll bring substantial experience of operational and strategic leadership in contexts relevant to SHiFT’s work and have a proven track record of developing services and ensuring they are delivered at pace, and to a consistently excellent standard. You’ll have credibility and confidence in working with stakeholders relevant to policy and practice reform, including civil servants and senior practice leaders, in systems relevant to SHiFT’s work (e.g. Youth Justice, Children’s Social Care, policing, and education). Colleagues would say that you’re a person who gets things done, loves data and learning, sweats the small stuff, and is great at bringing people with you.

Your principal responsibilities will be to: 

●       Ensure the consistent implementation and ongoing fidelity of SHiFT through our Practices, as is reflected in our Framework / the SHiFT Commitments and SHiFT Ways. This includes leading:

o   the scoping, mobilisation, and launch of new Practices; and

o   the clear, consistent, high-quality operation of 18-month SHiFT Programme cycles, underpinned by high support and high challenge partnerships with organisations that host SHiFT Practices (to date, all Local Authorities).

●       Implement and (working closely with the Director of Practice & Learning) iterate SHiFT’s quality assurance and quality improvement processes to ensure:

o   there is clear line of sight to the activities of our Practices and their impacts for children, young people and families, as well as on influencing systems change; and

o   SHiFT has a clear evidenced understanding of what’s working well and why and where and how to learn and make improvement.

●       Plan and coordinate local, regional, and national practice facing activities, including the delivery of SHiFT’s learning and development programme, and impactful opportunities for collaboration and learning across SHiFT Practices.

●       Identify and realise opportunities for improvement in the operation of SHiFT Practices, reflecting learning as we grow in the development of our approach and processes to maximise SHiFT’s opportunities for reach and influence.

●       Translate insight from SHiFT’s ideas in action to inform and influence wider policy and practice change in ways consistent with SHiFT’s approach and Mission.

●       Identify and realise impactful opportunities for developing SHiFT’s activities and sharing our approach and evidence of impact to influence systems change. 

●       Contribute to whole organisation strategic development and operational effectiveness as a member of SHiFT’s Senior Leadership Team, reporting regularly into SHiFT’s Board of Trustees and Practice Committee.

Beliefs and alignment

• The belief that all people are capable of change and that a relationship with a skilled practitioner can be a powerful driver of this.
• The belief that young people who display behaviours linked to offending can be supported so that they cease offending and meaningfully contribute to society.
• An alignment to a culture of high trust and high expectation where there are fewer rules, high levels of accountability, and a need for excellent performance from the entire team.
• An alignment to SHiFT’s Values – ambition, courage, flexibility, and tenacity – which reflect the ‘Breaking Cycles’ ingredients (the foundations on which SHiFT is built).
• A preparedness to challenge the status quo and be positively disruptive in the pursuit of higher standards even when this is uncomfortable.
• Dynamism, tenacity, and determination – you are someone who does not give up until you succeed. You have a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Curiosity and a commitment to learning – comfortable in a fast-paced and aspirational ‘start-up’ context, and as part of a team that is committed to ongoing reflection, adaptation, and improvement.

Experience, knowledge, and skills

·        Knowledge and experience of dynamic risk management is desirable.

·        Experience developing and embedding audit and oversight processes is desirable.

·        Experience of contract management is desirable.

·        Experience leading geographically dispersed teams is desirable.

·        Experience developing and selling policy change recommendations is desirable.