Development Officer – Therapeutic Practice & Service Standards

Service: Therapeutic Development - OSLG

Salary: £32,635, rising to £36,158 FTE per annum*
(£19,845.61 - £21,987.98 for part-time 22.5 hours per week)

Additional £480 FTE per year home-based allowance
(£291.89 per annum for part-time, 22 hours per week)

Location: Home-based with occasional national travel

Hours: Part-time 22.5 hours per week
We offer flexible working arrangements, please see below for more details.

Contract: 18 months fixed term

Family Action & this role:
At Family Action we support people through change, challenge or crisis. It’s what we’ve done for over 150 years. We protect children, support young people and adults and offer direct, practical help to families and communities.

We see first-hand the power of family to shape lives, for better or worse, so we speak up for the importance of family in national and local policymaking, amplify family voices and represent the changing needs of families in the UK today.

We are embarking on an ambitious organisation wide programme to strengthen and unify practice standards across all counselling, therapy and psychologically informed services. This includes work on regulated practice expectations, pay and grading alignment, supervision models, workforce standards, practice frameworks and evidence resources.

About the Role
As the Development Officer – Therapeutic Practice & Service Standards, you will play a pivotal role in coordinating this work. You will support the development of national standards, frameworks and guidance that will shape Family Action’s counselling and psychologically informed services for years to come.
This role is perfect for someone who enjoys working with complexity, can confidently engage senior practitioners, and has strong project coordination skills. You do not need to be a clinician, but experience within counselling/mental health/psychologically informed services will be a strong advantage.

You will:
• Coordinate multi stakeholder working groups and consultations
• Contribute to drafting and refining national practice standards
• Summarise research, good practice evidence and clinical guidance
• Support development of supervision models and regulated practice expectations
• Maintain workforce registration and membership data
• Support the creation of tools, templates and implementation guidance
• Work closely with senior clinical leads and operational managers

About You
You will bring:
• Strong project coordination or service improvement experience
• Excellent communication, analysis and organisational skills
• Confidence working with senior clinical/operational colleagues
• Ability to draft clear, accurate documentation and combine evidence
• A commitment to inclusive, evidence-informed practice

Experience in counselling, psychological support or clinical services is desirable and strongly weighted, but not essential.

Benefits:
• an annual paid leave entitlement of 30 working days plus bank holidays
• up to 6% matched-pension contributions
• enhanced paid sick leave and paid family leave provisions
• eye care and winter flu jabs vouchers
• cycle to work scheme
• investing in your professional development with ongoing quality training and career development opportunities

We are a people focused, can-do organisation, which strives for excellence in all we do and operates with mutual respect.

To Apply:
If you’re excited by this role and inspired to shape the future of professional training the therapy sector, apply now and lead a growing portfolio of impactful training programmes. If you meet 80% or more of the essential criteria, we would still encourage you to apply or get in touch with us for a conversation.

• Click the “Apply Now” link below and fill out our digital application form
• Closing Date: 21st of June at 23.59

Interview date: WC 6th July

Location: held on Microsoft Teams.

For direct queries or if you would like to discuss any aspect of the selection process or flexible working requests, please email: pippa.donovan@family-action.org.uk

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion:
We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that candidates may need during the recruitment process and you will be asked whether you require any adjustments if shortlisted for interview. We also make reasonable adjustments on the job, where required.
We are committed to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in all that we do and welcome applications from all sections of the community / particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates and candidates with disabilities because we are committed to increasing the representation of these groups at Family Action. We know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for families and children and strive for our workforce to be truly representative of the diverse communities we support.

All candidates with a disability are welcome to apply under the Disability Confident Scheme and request priority consideration for an interview, provided they meet the essential criteria for the role.
To help remove financial barriers to working with us, we will reimburse travel costs if you are invited to attend an interview in person.

*Ordinarily Family Action appoints new starters at the starting point of the salary scale (with subsequent annual pay progression), unless you have experience that would justify appointment further up the salary scale or there are other exceptional reasons.