Team Manager - Intensive Family Therapy

Team Manager opportunity in the Intensive Family Therapy (IFT) Team, City Wide Service

Intensive Family Therapy - Team Manager 

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Team Manager to lead the launch of a new Intensive Family Therapy (IFT) team in Birmingham. This role is central to establishing a high‑quality, evidence‑based service that supports young people aged 9–17 who are at risk of entering care or custody due to exploitation, offending, or severe behavioural difficulties. As we expand our IFT offer, strong leadership is essential to ensure the team delivers intensive, systemic, and trauma‑informed interventions that keep young people safely at home, in school, and connected to their communities.

The Team Manager will play a key role in shaping the culture, practice standards, and operational foundations of this new team. This includes embedding the IFT model from day one, ensuring robust clinical governance, and supporting therapists to deliver purposeful, formulation‑led work with families. The role provides strategic oversight of risk, safeguarding, and multi‑agency collaboration, ensuring that the service responds effectively to crisis and maintains trusted, relationship‑based practice.

The Intensive Family Therapy (IFT) service provides intensive, systemic, community‑based support to children and young people aged 9–17 who are at risk of entering care or custody due to offending, exploitation, or severe behavioural difficulties. The aim is to keep young people safely at home, in education, and out of trouble by working intensively with the whole family and wider network. The service operates 24/7, and the Team Manager participates in the on‑call rota to support therapists during crisis work.

As the IFT Team Manager, you will lead and support a team of IFT Therapists, ensuring high‑quality, formulation‑led practice and strong adherence to the IFT model. You will provide clinical and line management supervision, oversee risk and safeguarding, guide therapists in developing clear goals with families, and ensure interventions address the underlying systemic drivers of behaviour. You will work closely with multi‑agency partners, contribute to service development, and maintain high standards of practice across the team.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the team to reduce offending, anti‑social behaviour, and risk of out‑of‑home placements.
• Improving young people’s engagement in education, training, and positive activities.
• Strengthening family relationships and tackling underlying systemic issues.
• Providing specialist psychological formulation, consultation, and guidance to therapists.
• Overseeing assessment, allocation, and coordination of care, including multi‑agency involvement.
• Ensuring fidelity to the IFT model through supervision, training, and quality assurance.
• Supporting therapists through home visits, case reviews, and reflective practice.
• Maintaining strong partnerships with Children’s Services, Youth Justice, schools, and other agencies.
• Managing performance, workload, and professional development for up to seven therapists.
• Contributing to recruitment, service development, evaluation, and reporting.
• Ensuring safe, effective community practice and adherence to policies and professional standards.

The role requires travel across Birmingham and the ability to work flexibly across home, community, and office settings. You will maintain HCPC (or equivalent) registration, engage in CPD, and keep up to date with relevant legislation and policy.

Our work is grounded in purposeful, collaborative and empathetic practice. We prioritise the child’s needs at every level, using trauma‑informed approaches, trusted relationships and relationship‑based practice to guide all decision‑making.

This is an opportunity to lead a highly skilled therapeutic team, influence multi‑agency safeguarding practice, and make a meaningful difference to young people and families across Birmingham.

About you:

• You will have a minimum of a Batchelor’s degree in a relevant subject, and/or preferably professionally qualified in a relevant discipline (e.g. social work, psychology, mental health nursing), and will have significant experience of working behaviourally and/or therapeutically with young people and their families where there is challenging behaviour.

• You will be positive, passionate and committed to making a difference to young people and their families and enjoy the challenge this brings. You will demonstrate an interest in evidence-based practice and research, and will be keen to develop your knowledge of IFT and therapeutic and intervention skills.

In order to be considered for this role please complete an application form demonstrating how you meet the competencies required, as outlined in the attached person specification. CVs will not be accepted.

For informal enquiries please contact Alyce Simpson-Ward on 07511406219

The closure date is 22^nd  March 2026.

Interviews are expected to be held on the 9^th & 10^th April.

• We pay your Social Work England registration fee
• We pay your DBS application fee and reimburse your update service fee
• A generous annual leave package of 30 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days after 5 years of service and 35 days after 10 years of service.
• Salary Sacrifice Car Scheme which gives you the chance to drive a brand-new car for an affordable fixed monthly amount as part of a salary sacrifice initiative. With no deposits or credit checks required a range of all-inclusive driving packages
• Free on-site parking at our offices on One Avenue Road (Aston) and Lifford House (Stirchley). We also provide onsite electric car charging ports which are free to use!
  Full access to our amazing internal employee benefits scheme including, Occupational Health services, Rewards Schemes, Benefits discounts (including the Blue Light Card), Health & Fitness and Personal Wellbeing support and much more!
• Flexible and hybrid working policy - we are well adapted to a hybrid model of working which includes a combination of time spent in the office and at home and we offer a variety of working patterns, to support the needs of the Trust and to ensure a positive work/life balance for our employees
• You will receive a generous local government career average pension scheme in line with the Local Government Pension Scheme
• Discounted gym memberships with Pure Gym and Nuffield Health
  

Help us to change children and young people’s lives!

At Birmingham Children’s Trust, we are committed to making a positive impact on the lives of over 10,000 children and young people in our city every day. Our mission is to support the most disadvantaged children and young people in Birmingham, ensuring they are safe, happy, and healthy.

Why Join Us?

• Impactful Work - be part of a team that makes a real difference in the lives of the city’s most vulnerable children.
• Supportive Environment - enjoy a supportive and collaborative work culture where your contributions are valued.
• Career Development - benefit from tailored development programs, supportive supervision, and a range of learning opportunities to enhance your skills and advance your career.
• Generous Benefits - take advantage of our competitive reward package including generous leave allowance, Local Government pension scheme, and additional benefits.

Our Values

We approach our work with care and compassion, actively listening to the needs of the children and young people we serve. We involve them in the decisions that affect their lives, ensuring their voices are heard and respected.

We are committed to using our resources wisely, ensuring that every penny is spent where it counts the most. We foster collaboration among schools, health professionals, and the police, working together to create a supportive network for our young people.

We believe that when we work as one cohesive team, the children and young people of Birmingham are more likely to thrive. Our unified approach ensures that we provide the best possible support and opportunities for their growth and development.

Join us and together, we can create a brighter future for all.

Safeguarding

At Birmingham Children’s Trust, we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.

Depending on the role, you may be asked to undergo the appropriate level of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check to assess your suitability for working with children and young people.

The level of check (Standard, Enhanced, or Enhanced with Barred List) is determined based on the specific responsibilities of the role and the level of contact with children and young people.

We are committed to the fair treatment of all applicants, including those with criminal records. Having a criminal record will not necessarily bar an individual from working with us. This will depend on the nature of the position and the circumstances and background of the offence.