About us
Changing Lives is a nationwide charity helping people facing the most challenging of circumstances to make positive change - for good. We believe that everyone deserves a safe home, a rewarding job and a life free from addiction or abuse. We know that given the right support, anyone can change their life for the better.
Our services across the country help thousands of people each year who are experiencing a wide range of complicated challenges, including homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, unemployment, involvement with the criminal justice system, sexual exploitation and domestic abuse. By focusing on their strengths, potential and opportunities, we support the people we work with to overcome their problems and live safe, successful, independent lives.
Our charity is powered by over 600 passionate colleagues who bring a diverse and inclusive environment for our colleagues to grow. We are proud to say that many have actual lived experience of the challenges faced by those we support. We are looking for committed and compassionate professionals to join our team, who share our enthusiasm for changing lives.
About the Service - Women and Children's Services
Changing Lives delivers a wide range of specialist domestic abuse services for adults, children and families affected by domestic abuse, sexual violence, trauma, and multiple disadvantage. Our provision includes safe accommodation through refuge and dispersed accommodation, alongside community-based support, including Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVA) services and Independent Sexual Violence Advocates (ISVA), Outreach and Assertive Outreach, Counselling, Survivor support, and integrated partner support linked to behaviour change programmes.
We also run dedicated women's centres and specialist services for those at risk of, or struggling with, challenging circumstances, including women involved in the criminal justice system and those who have experienced trauma, sexual exploitation or selling sex.
We recognise that women and girls often face experiences and vulnerabilities that are distinct to their gender. Domestic abuse, sexual violence and childhood trauma are common features in the lives of many people we support and can have a profound impact on health, wellbeing and life opportunities.
Across all of our services, we take a trauma-informed and strengths-based approach, helping people recover from abuse, build resilience, regain control of their lives and develop meaningful connections within their communities. By combining safe accommodation, specialist advocacy, therapeutic support, behaviour change interventions and lived-experience leadership, we provide a comprehensive pathway to safety, recovery and long-term empowerment.
About the Job
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Project Lead to join our Women and Children’s Services. The successful candidate will manage and oversee Ridley Villas, supporting staff to deliver excellent standards of trauma informed care.
Ridley Villas provides psychologically informed accommodation for women who are on a Medication Assisted Recovery pathway and those in recovery from addiction, together with their children. Families accessing the service have current involvement with Children’s Social Care, often where there are concerns regarding the safety and welfare of children, including situations where there is a risk of children going into care or where there is a reunification plan to support a child’s safe return to their mother’s care.
The Service works in close partnership with Children’s Social Care and other relevant agencies to deliver coordinated, trauma-informed support. Through structured programmes of intervention, the project supports women to strengthen their recovery, enhance parenting capacity, reduce risk, and improve outcomes for their children, with the aim of enabling children to remain safely in, or return to, their mother’s care.
The focus of this service is to support women who are in recovery from addiction, working with women holistically, recognising that addiction is a very common response to experiences of trauma and abuse. Ridley Villas offers five self-contained units, known as the ‘hub’, and two dispersed units, which are flats in the Newcastle area for families who can manage more independently. Families in the dispersed units access the programme of support at the ‘hub’ and all families have an allocated caseworker who offers tailored support. Based in Newcastle Ridley Villas supports families from Newcastle and Gateshead and is jointly funded by both Local Authorities.
At Changing Lives we value a diverse workforce and are keen to recruit people of all ages and from all backgrounds, abilities and ethnicities.
DUE TO THE NATURE OF THE ROLE THIS ROLE IS ONLY OPEN TO FEMALE APPLICANTS
