Why do we need the role?

To lead existing and new initiatives that support the prevention of youth homelessness across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.

Key Responsibility

Lead and develop teams, services and new initiatives ensuring delivery of highly effective services that provide young people access to safe housing options and opportunities to thrive.

Key Competencies – what you need to be good at

• Taking a co-produced, creative approach to drive design, implementation, continual improvement and management of effective new and existing services that consistently achieve high outcomes with young people and provides them with choice and opportunity
• Inspiring trust and commitment; leading with compassion, able to recruit, support and develop teams and individuals to their highest potential
• Highly effective project and contract management
• Building positive stakeholder relationships and community networks
• Financial management; propose, manage, and track budgets
• Analysis and use of impact data to inform decision making, learning and improvement
• Meeting the regulatory requirements of service registration with Care Inspectorate
• Being a thoughtful and exceptional communicator with an understanding of boundaries, confidentiality and intersectionality
• Risk anticipation and management – keeping people safe in the workplace and across services

Behaviours – what traits we are looking for and think you will need for the role

• Dedicated and enthusiastic; believes in young people, their strengths and amazing potential and loves listening to them and seeking to understand their experiences
• A confident people manager who enjoys nurturing people and great teamwork, is a positive influence and wants to encourage a clear work-life balance for all
• Solutions thinker and problem explorer with enough curiosity to challenge norms
• Enterprising, able to identify emerging opportunities
• Highly organised, flexible; can work under pressure and deal with competing priorities
• Proactive and solutions focused approach dedicated to ‘making life easier’ – takes time to reflect on what is working, what isn’t – and why
• Confident decision maker, understands balancing autonomy and accountability
• A non-judgmental approach to working with young people and teams to promote a strengths-based approach and an understanding of and commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Qualifications & Experience

• Experience managing accommodation-based services with a variety of tenure and a knowledge of housing management, and health and safety
• Working with young people using a strengths-based mindset (Foyer’s Advantaged Thinking).
• Degree qualified and/or related qualification or willing to work towards for Registration purposes
• Registered (or be willing to obtain registration) with SSSC and compliant with National Care Standards
• Experience managing and developing people and high performing teams in supported housing and remote settings
• Highly experienced application and knowledge of safeguarding practices and ability to empower staff to apply these in their work.
• Detailed working knowledge of local housing options and welfare benefits from a youth perspective
• Strong understanding of ACE’s, Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma-Informed approaches.
• Experience in risk management and coordinating incidents and responses.
• Experience of working autonomously and being responsive to wider organisation requirements
• Excellent digital and administration skills including but not limited to MS Office
• Knowledge and understanding of equalities and diversity from a youth perspective, including working with young people from different cultural backgrounds

About Foyer Youth Housing

Every young person needs a safe place to call home and the time to develop skills that enable them to live independently.  As a foyer, we adopt an Advantaged Thinking lens to supporting young people ensuring they have access to safe, affordable accommodation and a space to learn the skills and nurture the connections to opportunities needed to help them thrive.

We operate supported housing services in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire which are registered with the Care Inspectorate.  In Aberdeenshire we support up to 120 young people (16-21 years, 26 if care experienced) on an outreach basis, working at the young person’s pace.

Through our Trinity Court accommodation in Aberdeen city centre, we offer up to 27 supported tenancies for young people aged 16-25 years with additional support during the first few months of move on as required.

We work closely with both local authorities seeking to look beyond service delivery and consider ways of preventing youth homelessness which makes up around 30% of homeless presentations across the region. We have additional services including Nightstop and are closely involved in Homewards in Aberdeen with a keen interest in collaboration around ideas that can end youth homelessness and where we can’t, making sure it is rare, brief and non-recurring.

We value the voice of young people in shaping what and how we do things.  We value co-production and challenging ourselves to continually improve. We proudly hold the Foyer Federation’s FOR Youth accreditation and liaise with Foyers from across the UK and internationally.

About the Role

As service manager, you will currently report to the CEO and have operational oversight of our housing services in both Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. You will be responsible for contributing to the development of solutions and new services that can prevent homelessness and improve affordable housing choices for young people. You will oversee the effective monitoring and evaluation of the Housing team’s performance, ensuring management information is regularly and consistently reviewed and used effectively.

Efficient and effective management of resources is key for this role, and the successful candidate must be able to propose, manage and track budgets to ensure impactful project and contract management. You will also be expected to build positive stakeholder relationships and community networks to further develop our foyer offering and prevent youth homelessness.

You have a great team to manage who are highly experienced whilst open to learning and developing their practice to get it right for every young person. You will encourage continuous improvement within the team, through regular performance conversations providing clear direction aligned with contractual requirements. You will inspire, motivate, and lead your team with compassion and respect, supporting their collaboration to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated and ensure services are delivered to the highest standard.

There will also be opportunities to work at a strategic level working with partners across Scotland influencing policies affecting young people and their housing options.

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