How you'll make a difference:
South Gloucestershire is committed to giving every child the best start in life. As Best Start in Life Family Hub Practice Manager, you will provide operational leadership for services delivered through Family Hubs, Children’s Centres and outreach, helping families access welcoming, practical and coordinated support across their local community.
Working with the Early Help Strategic Lead, your team and local partners, you will strengthen early intervention and ensure families receive the right help at the right time. The role combines supportive leadership, partnership working and performance oversight with a clear focus on family wellbeing, safeguarding, home learning and reducing barriers to support.
What you will be doing:
This role provides day-to-day leadership for the local Best Start in Life Family Hub offer. You will manage services for families with children aged 0–5 while contributing to the wider Family Hub offer for children and families aged 0–19, or up to 25 for young people with SEND.
A strong focus on quality, staff development and family voice runs throughout the post. Through reflective supervision, effective use of data and close partnership working, you will help the team deliver evidence-based programmes, confident signposting and coordinated Early Help, while supporting parents and carers to shape local services.
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You will lead, supervise and develop Family Hub and administrative staff, supporting confident decision-making, strong practice, wellbeing and performance.
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You will manage hub-based, outreach, group and one-to-one activity, ensuring evidence-based programmes, information and practical family support are delivered consistently.
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You will strengthen partnership delivery, referral pathways and signposting across health, education, welfare, housing, youth, community and voluntary services.
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You will oversee safeguarding, quality, health and safety, performance data, team resources and continuous improvement across the local Family Hub offer.
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You will develop Parent and Carer Panels and other opportunities for families to influence accessible, welcoming and responsive local services.
What we need from you:
- We require you to hold a recognised and relevant professional qualification, such as youth, early years, teaching, social care or a Level 5 management qualification appropriate to the role.
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You will have significant post-qualification experience in children’s services, including staff supervision and delivery of support for vulnerable or disadvantaged children and families.
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You will bring strong knowledge of Early Help, safeguarding, Best Start in Life guidance, national issues affecting children and families, and effective approaches to improving outcomes.
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You will be a confident leader and communicator, able to manage performance, team budgets and sensitive issues while building effective relationships with families, staff and partners.
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You will have good IT skills and the ability to use data, reports and specialist systems to support oversight, accountability and service improvement.
What you need to know:
- This is a limited term position, lasting 1 year from your start date.
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Although this post is advertised as full time, we welcome applications from experienced managers seeking part-time, job-share or flexible working arrangements.
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An enhanced DBS check is required, and you will need to travel throughout the authority and surrounding area, with occasional work outside normal office hours.
Interviews are expected to be held on Tuesday 1st September 2026.
How a career at South Gloucestershire Council is different:
- As part of our benefits package, you will receive generous annual leave (pro rata), employee wellbeing support and you will have access to a range of staff discounts, including eye tests, travel, shopping and leisure activities.
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We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.
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What’s special here is the strength of the team ethos. We are a relatively small local authority, so managers know staff well. They can plan their services to ensure teams have manageable caseloads and have effective supervision so feel supported to make decisions which are right for the children and young people they work with.
Our teams at South Gloucestershire Council are making a real difference to the lives of people who live, work and learn here.
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We're building and shaping communities which people are proud of.
- We’re providing essential services across our communities to ensure they are safe and well maintained.
We've achieved a great deal, but we need talented and dedicated people to ensure we continue to make a difference.
We’re making a difference, be part of it!
To view the full job description, please refer to the Best Start in Life Family Hub Practice Manager role profile.
