Job Introduction
Bradford is on an ambitious journey to transform outcomes for babies, children, young people and families. Early Help plays a vital role in supporting children, young people and families at the earliest opportunity, helping to build on strengths, improve outcomes and prevent needs from escalating. As we continue to develop and strengthen our Early Help offer across Bradford, we are looking for an experienced and passionate Practice Lead to help drive high-quality practice, innovation and continuous improvement across our services.
About the Role
As a Practice Lead, you will play a key role in shaping and improving Early Help practice across Bradford. Working across Family Hubs, Early Help, Early Years, SEND and Best Start in Life programmes, you will support the development of a skilled workforce and work with partners to strengthen Early Help delivery across the system.
You Will
- Lead and contribute to service improvement and transformation activity across prevention and early intervention services.
- Promote and embed high standards of practice across the Early Help partnership, ensuring assessments and plans are child-focused, outcome-driven and completed to a consistently high standard.
- Support the partnership to increase the number of children and families benefiting from excellent quality Early Help Assessments, Family & Friends Network meetings and Family Plans, ensuring a strengths-based approach that delivers meaningful outcomes for families.
- Support the development of high-quality, evidence-informed practice through coaching, challenge and workforce development.
- Use performance information, quality assurance activity, research and learning to identify strengths and drive improvements.
- Work collaboratively with internal teams, partners and commissioned services to deliver integrated support for children and families.
- Contribute to the development, implementation and evaluation of strategies, policies and programmes that improve outcomes.
- Champion a culture of continuous learning, innovation and reflective practice.
- Ensure the voice of children, young people and families is embedded within service development and improvement activity.
This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in the development of Bradford's Early Help system, driving high-quality practice across the partnership and helping to ensure that children and families benefit from effective, coordinated and timely support.
About You
You will need:
- You will hold a Level 5 qualification (or equivalent experience) and/or a relevant professional qualification in Social Work, Teaching, Nursing, Youth Work, Early Years or a related discipline, together with experience of working within children and family services and a commitment to continuous professional development.
- You will have significant experience of working with children, young people and families, with a strong understanding of Early Help, prevention, early intervention and safeguarding, and experience of promoting a strengths-based whole family approach to improve outcomes.
- You will have experience of leading or supporting service improvement, workforce development, quality assurance or performance management activity.
- You will be passionate about improving outcomes and ensuring children and families receive the right support at the right time.
- You will be confident in building effective relationships and influencing practice across teams, services and partner agencies.
- You will have experience of using performance information, audit findings, research and feedback to identify opportunities for improvement and drive change.
- You will have excellent communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to support, challenge and inspire practitioners, managers and partners.
- Deep commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
What We Offer
This is an exciting time to join Bradford as we deliver a nationally significant transformation of early help across the partnership.
You’ll also be joining an organisation that truly values its people, offering a range of benefits designed to support your wellbeing, growth, and work-life balance, including:
- Generous annual leave - 31 days rising to 34 with service, plus bank holidays
- Excellent Local Government pension
- Family-friendly policies and enhanced parental leave
- Health & wellbeing support, including Occupational Health and counselling
- Professional development and career progression opportunities
- we are a National Living Wage employer
For full details of our benefits, please see the attached ‘Our Benefits’ brochure
For an informal discussion
Please contact Alison Tomes, Principal Head of Service Early Help at
alison.tomes@bradfordcft.org.uk
Closing Date: 18th Oct 2026
Shortlisting: w/c 19th Oct 2026
Interviews: w/c 26th Oct 2026
