Area Manager - West Cumbria

You will be responsible for raising the profile of Triple A in the local area through public engagement, service development, networking, and collaboration.

As this is a part-time role, some of your duties will be shared as needed (most of the Triple A team also work part-time).

As is the nature of a small but growing charity, our services and projects are often required to change or evolve in response to new opportunities or changes in the social or political landscape in which we operate: being comfortable with this and helping procedures, systems, and staff adapt to changes smoothly will be an essential part of your role.

Reports to:

• Chief Executive Officer, trustees

Works with:

• CEO, Operations manager, Community services manager, Triple A Staff, Navigator mentors, Work Coaches, Youth Worker Professionals, Community, service users, and their families.

Employed by Triple A with flexible agreed working hours, which may be subject to change as service needs alter.

The Role and main duties:

• Implementation and administration of service processes including referrals, staffing, and case management
• Carrying out monthly staff supervisions
• Development of high-quality volunteer opportunities
• Supervising and supporting volunteers
• Collaborative involvement with pilot and research projects
• Liaising with other services and support staff and attending multi-agency panels
• Triaging new referrals: contacting and meeting with new Navigation referrals and ascertaining their needs, goals, and appropriateness for Navigation
• Collaboratively allocating and monitoring staff caseloads with the Operations manager
• Arranging alternative cover in the event of staff sickness or absence
• Providing on-call phone cover for Navigation and facilitation staff on a rota
• Supporting service delivery staff to track and monitor outcomes and goals
• Providing occasional out-of-hours on-call support for social groups and Discover Your Autism sessions, by arrangement
• Ensuring consistent and accurate reporting of outcome data and collating this in a timely and orderly fashion and to assist with board/contract/grant reporting where needed
• Collaborating with the central management team to prepare and deliver regular staff meetings and training
• Collaborating with the senior management team, staff, and trustees to review and update policy
• Ensuring all mandatory staff training and certification is recorded and up to date in collaboration with the Community Services manager
• Ensuring group activities are well-planned by facilitators with appropriate risk assessments in place in collaboration with the community services manager
• Responding appropriately to incidents and safeguarding concerns ensuring they are properly recorded and reported to the appropriate authority in a timely fashion
• Ensuring complaints or disputes are handled sensitively and professionally and are confidentially recorded and filed
• Meeting with the central management team regularly, via Teams, to update them with key service and case information and keeping them informed of any significant opportunities, developments, or incidents
• Supporting and advising staff around maintenance of professional boundaries and client confidentiality
• Project development and innovation

Person specification:

Note: We know not every strong candidate will have all of the “ideal” attributes listed below, we will happily provide additional support and training for the right candidate.

The ideal candidate will:

• Be passionate about stakeholder engagement
• Be passionate about lived experience-led service design, development, and delivery
• Have a very strong and up-to-date understanding of autism
• Have a strong connection with and understanding of communities based in Copeland and/or West Cumbria as a whole.
• Have experience working with autistic people and/or lived experience of autism
• Have strong administrative skills and be well-organized
• Have direct project management experience or equivalent relevant experience
• Be proactive in building up positive professional working relationships with local businesses and organizations
• Be comfortable taking collaborative responsibility for development and delivery of a variety of different projects depending upon the charity’s need
• Enjoy developing, implementing, and updating systems, procedures, and processes
• Enjoy innovative and creative thinking
• Be comfortable with a self-directed work schedule
• Work well both independently and as part of a team
• Be able to work well with neurodivergent colleagues (Triple A’s team and leadership are majority neurodivergent, primarily autistic and/or ADHD)
• Be familiar with risk management principles and procedures
• Have a solid understanding of safeguarding principles and procedures, and be willing to undertake ongoing safeguarding training
• Have management/project management experience within the health and social sector
• Be able to work comfortably with Excel, Outlook, Teams, and Word
• Be able to keep a cool head in a crisis
• Be open-minded and accepting of others
• Be flexible and adaptable to organizational growth, diversification, and change
• Be able to adapt your management style to the needs of individual staff members
• Be passionate about developing and maintaining neuroaffirming working practices
• Autistic applicants particularly welcomed