Frontline Social Care
Child Care Specialist
Get notified of more jobs like this · No spam, ever
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
When a child moves on from one of our homes to something less restrictive, it is never because of a technique. It is because a team of ordinary people were consistent for long enough to make it possible.
That team has to be trained, mentored and taught. In particular, the Nominated Managers, Registered Managers, Nominated Responsible Individuals and Responsible Individuals who will lead our new homes have to learn this from someone who has done it. That is the person we are looking for.
THE ROLE IN BRIEF
- Head of Practice & Quality – Children’s Residential Care
- Reports to: Director of Operations, Frontline Social Care
- Line management: Responsible Individual(s) and Nominated Responsible Individual(s)
- Location: Hybrid. The residential home-portfolio is nationwide, with some travel to every Frontline Social Care home. Home-based or office-based (Newton Abbot, Devon, or Potters Bar, Hertfordshire), with hybrid working.
- Contract: Permanent, full time. Some out-of-hours availability is expected during mobilisation, registration and inspection.
ABOUT FRONTLINE SOCIAL CARE
Frontline Social Care works with Local Authorities across England to establish, mobilise, govern and operate Ofsted-registered children’s homes, including specialist single-occupancy homes for children and young people with the most complex needs. We build a home around one child: the property, the staff team, the PACE model and the care plan are designed for that child, in partnership with the placing authority, before the child moves in.
We have a number of homes in mobilisation and a pipeline of further homes, alongside long-term collaborative commissions with Local Authorities. That growth is the reason this role exists.
THE CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WE CARE FOR
The children and young people in our homes have usually experienced abuse, neglect or exploitation, and have then experienced the further harm of repeated placement breakdown. Many have emotional and behavioural difficulties, neurodevelopmental needs, including autism, ADHD and learning disability. Many live with the effects of trauma: some self-harm, some experience suicidal thoughts, some go missing, and some have hurt other people. A number are subject to deprivation of liberty orders, currently made under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court and, as the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 is brought into force, under the amended section 25 of the Children Act 1989. Every one of them has been let down by adults and is living with the consequences.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
We do not describe children as “challenging”. We describe what has happened to them, what they need, and what a good day looks like. And every child we care for has the same goal written into their plan: to move on to something less restrictive than where they are now. A shared home. A foster family. Sometimes their own family. Our job is to make that possible.
WHAT THE WORK ACTUALLY IS
Some days it is board games, cooking, long walks, and getting someone back into a classroom for the first time in months. On other days a young person will be in real distress, and the job is to stay calm, stay close and stay kind until it passes.
Some of our shifts are waking nights: sitting up while a young person sleeps, checking they are safe, and being the first calm voice they hear if they wake. That is not a filler shift. It is a large part of how a child learns that adults stay.
The staff in our homes may be sworn at. Sometimes the words will be chosen to wound, and that can include discriminatory and racist language. It is never acceptable and it is never ignored, but it is understood for what it is: a child who has learned that hurting people is how you get their attention.
Every colleague who experiences this, whether support worker, Registered Manager or Responsible Individual, is debriefed, backed up, and never asked to carry it on their own.
WHAT WE ARE NOT
We do not run zero-tolerance homes. Reaching for the police every time a young person loses their temper hands them a criminal record and teaches them nothing. We work to the National Protocol on Reducing Unnecessary Criminalisation of Looked-after Children and Care Leavers: police involvement when it is genuinely needed, never as a substitute for good practice. Nor do we run homes without boundaries. Expectations are clear, consequences are proportionate and explained in advance, and every one of them is followed by repair. Children feel safest with adults who mean what they say.
THE ROLE
The role is equally a teaching role. There is a national shortage of experienced Registered Managers and Responsible Individuals. Frontline Social Care therefore appoints experienced, appropriately qualified practitioners from children’s residential care backgrounds, people who satisfy Ofsted’s fitness requirements, as Nominated Managers and Nominated Responsible Individuals before each home opens, and trains them through a structured internal programme to become the Registered Managers and Responsible Individuals of the homes they will lead. The Head of Practice and Quality designs, owns and personally delivers that programme.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
- Design, own and deliver the Frontline development programme for Nominated Managers (Registered Manager-designate) and Nominated Responsible Individuals: its curriculum, individual development plans, observed practice, coaching and assessment.
- Hold the readiness assessment before any manager or Responsible Individual application is submitted to Ofsted, prepare candidates for the Fit Person Interview, and continue to mentor them through registration and the home’s first inspection.
- Define and own the Frontline Social Care practice framework: the standards, tools and expectations that translate the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 (as amended), the nine Quality Standards and the PACE Model into day-to-day practice in every home.
- Own the end-to-end quality assurance and audit cycle for the portfolio: scheduled and dip-sample audits, audit tools and trackers, and audit findings for individual homes, with clear actions and timescales.
WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR
- Significant senior experience in children’s residential care, either as a Registered Manager and/or Responsible Individual, including successful Ofsted registration and inspection; or in a senior Ofsted or Local Authority children’s services role with direct responsibility for children in residential care.
- Experience of coaching, mentoring or training managers or senior practitioners, and of holding them to account for regulatory or statutory performance.
- Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Residential Childcare (England), or a qualification that Ofsted recognises as equivalent.
- Willing and able to travel across the portfolio; full UK driving licence.
BEFORE YOU APPLY
Regulated activity with children. Enhanced DBS check including the children’s barred list; Schedule 2 pre-employment checks; Ofsted fitness assessment where the post-holder is nominated as a Responsible Individual.
OUR COMMITMENT
Frontline Social Care is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects every colleague to share that commitment. We practise safer recruitment. We are committed to anti-discriminatory and anti-racist practice in the care we provide and in how we recruit, and we welcome applications from people with lived experience of care. Reasonable adjustments will be made throughout the recruitment process on request.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Location