Head of Research
The Head of Research will lead our newly established in-house research team.

The team will lead the centre’s programme of work to understand how best to support social workers and young people in contact with the care system, from the point of contact and referral, all the way through to foster care and adoption.

Its methods will include the quasi-experimental, designing interventions, designing and analysing randomised controlled trials, and using data science and machine learning to understand and predict decision making.

Head of Programmes
The Centre is looking to recruit a Head of Programmes to develop our commissioning capability, and to lead commissioning of research, independent evaluations, and technological innovation.

The Centre’s programme of work will seek to understand how best to support social workers and young people in contact with the care system, from the point of contact and referral, all the way through to foster care and adoption.

Operations Director
We are also recruiting a Chief Operating Officer to help guide the initiative through the remainder of the set-up phase, and hopefully beyond.

The Operations Director will be the Centre’s second-in-command, reporting to the Executive Director and ultimately to the Founding Board chaired by Sir Alan Wood. The overarching purpose of the role is to work closely with the Executive Director to develop the Centre’s financial and operational strategies, and to implement them. In doing so the post holder will take responsibility for the Centre’s day-to-day operations as it seeks to establish itself as a leading force for evidence-informed change in the children’s social care sector.

How to apply
To find out more about each role and how to apply, please follow the links above to the Nesta job pages.

The closing date for completed applications for each role is 25 November 2018.
Interviews will take place week commencing 3 December 2018.

What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care
The What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care is a new initiative that seeks better outcomes for children, young people and families by bringing the best available evidence to practitioners and other decision makers across the children’s social care sector. Our mission is to foster a culture of evidence-informed practice. We will generate evidence where it is found to be lacking, improve its accessibility and relevance to the practice community, and support practice leaders (e.g. principal social workers, heads of service, assistant directors and directors) to create the conditions for more evidence-informed practice in their organisations.