At Bury, we believe every child deserves to grow up in a safe, loving and stable home where they can thrive, build lasting relationships and achieve their full potential. We are investing in local solutions that keep children connected to the people, places and communities that matter most to them.

We are seeking an exceptional and inspirational Social Work leader to join our senior leadership team as Head of Service - My Home. This is a unique opportunity to shape and transform services that provide permanence, belonging and stability for children and young people.

Leading our fostering, adoption, kinship care, supported lodgings and sufficiency services, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring children can remain close to home wherever possible. You will also lead our ambitious programme to develop and expand local residential provision, creating high-quality homes and care arrangements that enable children to achieve the best possible outcomes.

In this role, you will:

Provide strategic leadership for services supporting children in care, care leavers, foster carers, adopters and kinship families.
Drive the delivery of Bury's sufficiency strategy, ensuring children have access to the right home, at the right time, in the right place.
Champion excellence in fostering, adoption, supported lodgings and kinship care, ensuring children experience stability, security and a strong sense of belonging.
Build effective partnerships with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Regional Care Co-operative and beyond to create opportunities and improve services for children and families.
Ensure the highest standards of quality, practice, performance, regulatory compliance whilst ensuring via strong quality assurance we consider children's lived experiences and outcomes at the centre of everything you do.
Support and inspire a skilled workforce to deliver outstanding practice and continuous improvement.
In the future lead the development of children's homes and innovative local provision that improves outcomes and reduces reliance on external placements.

About you

You are an experienced and values-driven leader who is passionate about improving the lives of children and young people. You will:

Be a qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England.
Have significant senior leadership experience within children's social care.
Bring expertise in fostering, adoption, kinship care, sufficiency planning and children's services reform.
Have a strong track record of leading change, developing services and delivering measurable improvements.
Be a collaborative and compassionate leader who can inspire people, build strong partnerships and create a culture of high support and high challenge.
Be relentless in your commitment to achieving the very best outcomes for children, young people and families.

Why Bury?

Bury is a place with big ambitions for children. We are committed to creating services that help children feel safe, loved and connected, while supporting them to achieve their aspirations and enjoy positive futures.

You'll join a supportive, innovative and forward-thinking leadership team with a shared commitment to excellent practice, strong relationships and continuous improvement. Together, we are building services that put children at the heart of every decision and provide them with the stability and opportunities they deserve.

This is more than a leadership role.

It is an opportunity to shape the future of children's services, influence lasting change and help transform the lives of children and young people.

About Bury
The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Appointment may be subject to a satisfactory disclosure at the appropriate level under the Disclosure and Barring Service.
In line with safer recruitment, please ensure that your application/CV covers your full employment history and there is a reason noted for any gaps in employment. Successful candidates will be asked to provide relevant references for the past ten years and character references will not be accepted.

Please note we are unable to support with sponsorship at this time.

As a Corporate Parent, ensure that the work and services you deliver considers our care experienced young people, promotes their life chances empowers them to influence the policies, services, and decisions that affect them, champions their rights, and ensure they grow up in the best possible way

Benefits of working for Bury Council
To hear about the benefits for working with Bury Council, please visit Bury - Home | greater.jobs
We support employees to work with agility, where appropriate for the post and service requirements.
We are committed to Bury being an equal society that recognises values and embraces all people, regardless of any difference, for the skills, abilities and experiences they bring into the workforce and the wider community. Therefore we guarantee an interview for disabled people, looked after children/ care leavers, armed forces personnel (including reservists and veterans) and carers of adults or disabled children if they meet the essential criteria.

If you have completed the GM Elevate (Leadership Development) Programme, please indicate this within the ‘About You’ or ‘Supporting Statement’ section of your application.

Next steps

If you would like to discuss this post please contact Leanne.Green@bury.gov.uk who will put you in touch with Linda Evans, Director of CSC and Early Help.

Shortlisting to take place on 16th October, interviews will be held on 30th October 2026.

Supporting Documents

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