Head of Practice, Quality & Development

The Head of Quality, Practice and Development will play a key leadership role at Hope Street, supporting the growth, quality and effectiveness of our trauma informed residential community for justice-involved women and their children.

Working closely with the Community Director, you will contribute to the ongoing development and delivery of services across both the Hope Street Hub and wider housing portfolio.

You will support strategic planning, service development and quality assurance processes, ensuring that our operational model remains responsive to the needs of the women and children we support.

You will provide reflective leadership to key members of the team, modelling trauma informed and responsive practice.

In doing so, you will foster a team culture rooted in relational practice, curiosity and accountability and help ensure that day to day delivery is consistent with our values and overall aims.

A core focus of the role will be to support the strategic oversight of referral pathways.

Working alongside the Community Director and the Referral and Engagement Coordinators, you will help shape and implement a responsive referral strategy designed to increase visibility, maintain a steady flow of appropriate referrals, and strengthen relationships with external agencies, with a focus on fundraising and commissioning opportunities.

Given Hope Street’s distinctive role as a community-based residential service and alternative to custody, we are seeking someone with extensive safeguarding expertise and experience of leadership in services for justice involved individuals or women-only spaces.

This insight will enable you to support staff navigating complex systems, contribute to casework with confidence, and help ensure that Hope Street continues to challenge traditional responses to justice-involved women through a trauma-informed, community-led model.

Your professional credibility and operational expertise will support meaningful change and reinforce strong partnerships across the wider justice landscape.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Management

• Support the Community Director in delivering strategic leadership across Hope Street’s Hub and housing portfolio, contributing to a trauma-informed model that responds to the needs of justice-involved women and their children.

• Deputise for the Community Director when required, contributing to service wide decision making and the implementation of agreed priorities.

• Line Manage our Recovery Lead, Admissions & Transitions Lead, Night Community Lead and our Hub Community Lead, as well as our two Referral and Engagement Coordinators, promoting reflective practice, relational leadership and team wellbeing.

• Provide oversight and support to our Partnerships & Development Officer to identify opportunities for partnerships and commissioned income.

• Champion a culture of continuous learning and development across the team, embedding trauma-informed values and reflective supervision.

Service Delivery & Quality

• Provide oversight of Pathway Planning and Programme delivery across the Hub and housing portfolio, ensuring this aligns with One Small Thing’s values and is responsive to resident needs.

• Provide oversight of programme frameworks such as TIERS (Trauma Informed Effective Reinforcement System) to support consistency, accountability and continuous improvement.

• Ensure that the programme is subject to regular quality assurance and continuous improvement; reflecting on feedback from residents, our team, partners and key stakeholders.

• Establish and maintain robust feedback mechanisms for both in house and externally delivered programmes, ensuring that learning is captured, acted upon and informs service development.

• Monitor programme delivery to ensure it consistently reflects trauma-informed practice, with a focus on safety, choice, collaboration, trust and empowerment.

• Role model effective leadership and embedding of key change projects, consistently modelling a trauma-informed approach with regards to communication, collaboration and trust.

Safeguarding & Risk

• Contribute to the effective implementation of our safeguarding policies, procedures and practice, ensuring responsibilities across our team are clear and training or development needs are identified and met.

• Act as a Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), supporting the Community Director to respond to and manage safeguarding concerns to effectively and safely manage risk.

• Lead the Incident, Risk & Safeguarding group at Hope Street, chairing meetings and ensuring actions are followed up.

Collaboration & Partnerships

• Support the delivery of a referral strategy in partnership with the Community Director and Referral and Engagement Coordinators, maintaining appropriate referral flow and strengthening external relationships.

• Contribute to the development of effective pathways with justice, housing, health and community partners to ensure integrated support for women and children.

• Maintain positive working relationships with statutory and voluntary partners, supporting the monitoring and review of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and associated Risk Assessments.

• Represent Hope Street at external meetings and forums, as appropriate.

Operations & Compliance

• Support the design and implementation of operational systems, staffing and resource allocation to ensure safe, high-quality delivery. 

• Assist in the preparation and monitoring of service budgets, working with the Community Director to ensure resources are effectively aligned with delivery priorities.

• Support compliance with relevant legislation and internal policies, including those relating to safeguarding, health and safety, data protection and service provision, conducting audits and assessments as required.

Other Responsibilities

• Contribute to the development of funding bids, delivery partnerships and reporting to support the financial sustainability and ongoing impact of Hope Street.

• Take part in on-call management rota, taking the on-call phone for a maximum of 1 in 4 weekends to respond to “out-of-hours”, emergency queries and concerns.

• Any other duties commensurate with to your role.

About One Small Thing

One Small Thing was founded in 2014 by prison philanthropist Lady Edwina Grosvenor, in response to the unacceptable levels of suicide, self-harm and violence within women’s prisons in England, with the aim of achieving wholesale system change across the justice system, one small thing at a time.

Our name reflects the value of those small things – empathy, compassion, respect – and their combined power to make a big difference to the individual - and to society as a whole.

Hope Street is an exciting, brand-new, purpose-built residential community-based service, designed in collaboration with women, for justice-involved women and their children in Hampshire.

Trauma-informed by design, it will offer a safe and supportive environment where women and their children can access education, practical and therapeutic support and activities that build confidence, self-esteem and skills, and provide the opportunity to build a fulfilling and happy life and play a meaningful role within society.