Job title: Head of Partnership Support
Responsible to: Director of Services
Based: Hybrid - The Grange, Saunderton, Princes Risborough OR Beatrice Wright Centre, Yorkshire
Contract: Permanent
We are looking for someone who is passionate about making a real difference to the lives of deaf people. In this role, you will design, develop and deliver high-quality, personalised support that ensures every hearing dog recipient feels valued and supported throughout their journey with us.
You will play a key role in understanding and assessing recipients' changing needs throughout their partnership, integrating Hearing Link services where appropriate to provide a holistic support experience. You will also ensure every recipient receives an exceptional service during placement and beyond, regardless of whether a successor hearing dog is identified.
Alongside delivering outstanding support, you will inspire and motivate those around you, bringing energy, positivity and a strong focus on the life-changing impact of our work to your team every day.
Leadership
- Role model values & behaviours across the charity
- Contribute to the shaping and delivery of the All-Services strategy and workplan
- Demonstrate accountability, collaboration, openness and integrity across your work
- Lead the design, development, and delivery of outstanding recipient support
- Apply sector best practice and continuous learning to oversee best in sector support services
- Provide inspiring, motivational, visible, calm, and clear leadership and communication for all colleagues in your team
Management
- Design and implement a codified support model (digital, community, home-based), ensuring continuous monitoring improvement through regular recipient insight and feedback loops
- Oversee dog-recipient embedding, particularly in the early stages of the partnership
- Provide quality lifecycle partnership support for both the dogs and for the recipient (wellbeing, performance, transitions)
- Ensure wherever possible, healthcare and behavioural issues are managed in situ and dog moves are minimised
- Assess ongoing hearing needs and enable access to both internal hearing services and support and external triaging to specialist support services
- Collaborate with the Head of Support Pathways to assess the needs of our recipients and where strategically aligned, not delivered by another organisation, and financially viable, collaborate with the Head of Support Pathways who will lead on the identification and design of solutions
- Build and co-ordinate local community ecosystems, working together with the Dog training and Income generation SMT and influencing through your own local team structure
- Develop local engagement programmes (events, workshops, peer support) to enhance the support of your recipients in their communities. Wherever possible tying these into the local ecosystem
- Lead 5-year pipeline forecasting for successor dog demand on retirement
- Working in collaboration with ADUK, the design and delivery of an accessibility strategy and plan to support recipients with accessibility issues, influence policy and practice and provide lived experience advocacy and case studies
- Drive data and insight -led service improvement ensuring efficiency and effectiveness
- Lead and develop the Partnership Support team, ensuring strong performance is rewarded and developed and weaker performance is supported and managed
- Ensure consistent quality, care, and safeguarding standards for both recipients and dog
Qualifications and Experience
- Degree, certification, or equivalent experience in service design and delivery, ideally in a related field and with a user-centric / volunteer-led approach
- Experience of working with and coaching volunteers and vulnerable people: able to see, and effectively support, all sides of a partnership (service user, volunteer, dog, and staff trainer
Leadership and Team Management Skills
- Leading and managing a team environment: strategy, structure, workplans, metrics, capabilities, resources, financials, efficiencies, reporting at senior level
- Managing and mentoring a staff team: coaching, setting and managing standards & protocols, objectives and measures, performance and conflict resolution
- Excellent stakeholder communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to engage sensitively with people with hearing loss. Ability to write and communicate clearly, effectively, with consistency at all levels.
Programme and Operational Management Skills
- Analytical skills, with the ability to use data and insight accurately to inform decisions.
- Problem solving in complex, sensitive environments
- Strong organisational and operational planning skills
- Skilled at guiding and managing multi-channel support services (digital, in-person, group based)
- Skilled at coordinating with operational or logistics teams (e.g. pipelines, regionally delivered service models)
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Employee Assistance Programme
- Death in Service Payment
- Annual leave enhancements recognising long service
- Day off for your birthday
- Defined contribution group personal pension plan
- Enhanced sick pay
- Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
- Eye care
- Hearing tests
- Learning and Development opportunities
- Discounts on merchandise at Hearing Dog gift shops
- Pet Dog Policy
National charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, trains dogs to transform the lives of deaf people and provides hearing loss services – because nobody with hearing loss should feel alone.
