Therapeutic Services Manager

37 hours per week / Permanent / Hybrid (three days onsite and two from home) Monday-Thursday, 9am-5pm, Friday 9am-4.30pm.

Our mission is to help children and young people have a fair chance to be who they want to be. We do this by providing a safe home, increasing life skills and self-confidence, and improving emotional wellbeing and mental health.

YMCA DownsLink Group has been delivering counselling and therapeutic services to children, young people and families through our YMCA Dialogue Service in community and school settings for over 25 years.

We are looking for an experienced Service Manager to join our innovative and skilled counselling service to lead operational plans in line with organisation strategy and local strategic priorities, designing and developing a range of evidence-based therapeutic interventions to meet the needs of children and young people aged 11 to 18 years. You will manage and review performance against contract KPI’s and support the engagement of service users in co-production and participatory activities.

In delivering the role, you will work closely with the Clinical Lead, Team Managers and Head of Service, you will manage the continuing growth and development of our community-based children and young people’s counselling and wellbeing services in West Sussex. You will hold operational responsibility for the West Sussex Single Point of Access (SPOA) partnership, working alongside SPFT and the Youth Emotional Support service management and delivery teams to provide an effective referral pathway to support services for children and young people in West Sussex.

In addition, you will manage the development and operational delivery of services, providing line management support to the team, and be accountable for the financial performance of the service through the setting, administering and review of budgets. You will work closely with senior colleagues to assess business opportunities, tendering for and maintaining contracts.

ABOUT YOU: We know that there are great candidates who will not fit everything described, or who have important skills we have not mentioned. If that is you, please do not hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.

You will already have experience of working in a managerial or Lead capacity in Counselling and Mental Health Services for Children and Young People. You will have working knowledge of Trauma Informed Care and Psychologically Informed Environments and be able to hold a supervisory caseload, providing consultation to peers, colleagues, stakeholders and external agencies. You will have good communication and facilitation skills and the ability to successfully manage challenging and changing priorities whilst remaining calm and solution focused. You will already have substantial knowledge of and experience in Safeguarding and the assessment of risk for both clients and services and be able to work closely with internal and external partners to review and implement policy and procedural change.

In addition, you will have experience in the implementation of clinical structures, clinical governance, supervision processes and clinical eligibility/thresholds.