We are looking for a dedicated and collaborative Director of Safeguarding to join us for a 12-month maternity cover contract, to commence in January 2023.

  • Are you committed to placing safeguarding at the heart of an organisation’s operations and strategic vision?
  • Do you have experience in a leadership role, managing a team focused on safeguarding of children and at-risk adults?
  • Do you have an in-depth understanding of organisational safeguarding?
  • Are you motivated by our vision of creating a world where every child doesn’t just survive, but thrives, and can go on to change the world?
  • If the answers to these questions are yes, we would love to hear from you!

    About Us

    Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children’s unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

    Job Purpose

    Reporting directly to the General Counsel, as Director of Safeguarding you will be responsible for ensuring a safe, respectful and inclusive environment for children, their families, and wider communities when coming into contact with Save the Children UK, ensuring we are an organisation in which abuse, exploitation and harm are never tolerated, and survivor’s needs are prioritised.

    This is an exciting time to join the Safeguarding Team at SCUK. There has been a step-change in our approach to Safeguarding recently, with strong indicators of a strengthened culture around Safeguarding and high quality, survivor-focused case management systems now in place.

    You’ll be leading a talented, energetic, and committed team, with a team culture that embraces critically reflective practice, regularly explores new ways of achieving best outcomes for children and has placed the work of safeguarding at the heart of the organisation’s operations and strategic vision.

    As a rights-based organisation, we are committed to anti-racism and actively opposed systemic oppression of any form. The role holder will visibly lead our commitment to celebrate diversity, challenge inequality, and build an inclusive environment for every one of our employees so we can better represent the children we protect.

    Main Accountabilities

    As Director of Safeguarding, in the UK, you will be accountable for ensuring the work of all our teams is as safe as possible for children and their families. This spans our UK Impact team (who work with children and families in the UK), our media, communications, advocacy and campaigns work, in addition to strengthening safeguarding at our events, retail shops and other UK-based activities.

    You will also have accountability for supporting the work that we fund through Save the Children International, other Save the Children member organisations, and our own direct work through different entities globally to ensure that robust safeguarding is in place, while also providing subject matter expertise to safeguarding colleagues across the Save the Children movement. 

    You will provide strategic leadership and expertise for the continuous development of SCUK’s safeguarding strategy, policy, culture, and case management, including providing strategic advice safeguarding matters to Save the Children UK Trustees, Executive Leadership and management.

    Person Profile

    The ideal candidate will demonstrate significant experience in a strategic leadership role, managing staff engaging in safeguarding casework, ideally in a UK context, in addition to an international context.

    You’ll have in-depth knowledge and experience of Safeguarding issues, including legal frameworks, policy and best practice, with the ability to apply theoretically sound judgements to new or emerging threats, where existing fundamental principles do not easily apply.

    You’ll demonstrate highly developed communication skills to establish effective relationships with a wide variety of external and internal audiences and partners across different geographic locations and will be excited to lead, support and motivate a specialist team, with the ability to provide effective distance management.

    You’ll have:

  • Substantial experience of senior leadership in a role focused on safeguarding of children, vulnerable adults, staff and volunteers from sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, in addition to expertise in safer programming.
  • Extensive experience of safeguarding casework, liaison with statutory partners and the management of organisational responses.
  • A strong record of accomplishment in strategy implementation.
  • Evidence of a sound theoretical understanding of organisational safeguarding, the detection and investigation of exploitation, abuse and other forms of professional sexual misconduct.
  • Ability to make defensible decisions which affect the safety of vulnerable people and could be the subject of intense regulatory, political or media scrutiny.
  • Ability to understand, explain and present complex safeguarding concepts to a wide range our audiences, ensuring that ideas are understood, and practical actions can be taken.
  • Understanding of safeguarding within the context of global humanitarian and development work, where risks are heightened, and mitigations can be more challenging to implement.
  • Experience of leading high-level safeguarding investigations specifically in the areas of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and training others to take on investigation roles.
  • Proven ability to lead and co-ordinate safeguarding investigations.
  • Proven ability to Chair high level, cross-departmental, complex meetings.
  • Ability to analyse data from different sources including serious incident cases for the purpose of understanding practice trends and lessons learnt.
  • Aptitude

  • A demonstrable commitment to the principles of diversity and inclusion and their practical application and integration in the work environment.
  • A commitment to Save the Children UK’s aims and core values of accountability, ambition, collaboration, creativity, and integrity.
  • Note:

    To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

    Save the Children UK is committed to diversity and equality of opportunity in all aspects of our work both external and internal. We strive to be an inclusive employer and particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups such as returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people who are LGBT+, from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, with a disability, impairment, learning difference or long-term condition, with caring responsibilities, from different nations and regions, and from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.