Job Description
Director of Early Help and Safeguarding
Grade SMRE: £114,303 - £131,880pa
About Us
Our ambition is for Newham to be a place where every child and young person enjoys the best possible opportunities in life – through outstanding education; first-rate youth services; exceptional family support and social care services that ensure no child is left behind.
Newham is a unique place. The youngest and most diverse borough in London – with almost a quarter of residents aged under-18 and more than 100 languages spoken – it is an exciting and challenging place to work with children. Despite its extraordinary potential, this is a borough that experiences huge socio-economic challenges, deprivation and unemployment; with more than half of children living in poverty and stark inequalities.
About The Role
Our new Director will lead our good performing early help and children’s social care service, with accountability for Family Help, Child Protection and Care Experienced children and young people. We are looking for a Director to provide inspirational, relational leadership, oversee our successful social work workforce recruitment and retention strategy and continue to innovate and explore best practice in all that we do implementing the Social Care Reforms. We need a leader who will passionately and ambitiously work to improve outcomes for all children and young people in Newham and be an agent of change. Tackling racism, inequality and discrimination and striving for equity and fairness should be at the forefront of your leadership.
A genuine collaborator and a strong partner, you will help us deliver against our ambitious agenda to ensure Newham’s workforce and children and young people thrive.
Our Circles of Support Framework of Practice has been instrumental in advancing our partnership approach to working with families and providing them with every opportunity to access support that reduces harm and make positive change. With a strong focus on driving high quality consistent practice standards you will lead the service to deliver even better outcomes for children and young people and to be the best they can be.
In addition, a detailed understanding and awareness of the government agendas in respect of children's social care and safeguarding services and the ability to translate them into local practice is essential.
About You
Our expectations of the ideal candidate are that you will be an experienced leader of transformational change, with a track record of leading and developing Children’s Safeguarding services, together with a desire to make us an employer of choice where social work can flourish. We want our social workers to be able to work imaginatively whilst also continuing to grow, adapt and innovate as well as maintaining our commitment to robust quality assurance. To do that we are seeking someone who can inspire confidence, innovate, tackle inequalities and has a collaborative, inclusive style that pushes boundaries in our pursuit of excellence.
If you are interested in this role and would like an informal discussion with our Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services, please contact Laura Eden on 020 373 1156 or
[email protected]The closing date is Monday 4 th August 2025
To apply please submit your CV and supporting statement in no more than x2 A4 sides explaining your suitability and how you meet the criteria for the role as set out in the Job Description and Person Specification.
To view the job description and person specification please click here
Additional Information
We are committed to creating an inclusive, anti-racist environment for all. When you apply for a job at Newham, your application is considered on its merits regardless of your age, disability, ethnicity, faith, gender identity or sexual orientation. If you share our vision and values, and you bring the experience and skills we need, that’s all that matters to us.
The London Borough of Newham has important responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. If you are appointed to a job that involves working with these groups, you may be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
We practice anonymised recruitment. Please ensure that you remove all personal information from any documents that you upload.
The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.
About Us
The London Borough of Newham is located only 5 miles east of London. It is well positioned with access to all major networks in London and the south east. It is well connected by public transport with, bus, tube and DLR. When the Crossrail service opens it will call at Custom House close to our council offices and also Stratford station and from there to central London. The London City Airport which serves major European cities is located at Royal Albert Dock. Newham has the youngest overall population in the country. It was one of the six host boroughs for the 2012 Summer Olympics and contains most of the Olympic Park including the London Stadium. It has a thriving arts quarter with the Theatre Royal Stratford East offering excellent entertainment for all the family. There is the University of East London which has two campuses in Newham, one in Stratford and another next to the regenerated Royal Albert Dock. It also has a large Westfield shopping Centre in Stratford which has all the major retailers there. 
