About Simon Community Scotland

Simon Community Scotland is the largest provider of homelessness services in Scotland.

Our vision is for everyone to have a safe place to live with access to the support they need. Every day we help make positive things happen for people facing extremely difficult circumstances.

Everything we do is about and for people: the people we support, our staff, our partners and everyone affected by homelessness.

Our values are built into every area of activity and tell the story of how people remain at the heart of the Simon Community.

Job Summary

Simon Community is Scotland's leading homeless charity. We are creative and innovative. We get things done with care and compassion that make a difference to our community, being true to our values. We are a community of staff, volunteers and the people that we support.

We want to deliver services and responses that really matter to people and really make a difference. The majority of our funding comes from contracts allowing us to connect directly with people needing support. We want our services to excel in design, delivery and impact and we want our front-facing teams to be at the very forefront of excellent design and decision-making in our services. We need a remarkable person to help us make this happen. That person needs to bring experience, success and confidence; have a genuine passion for developing teams, creating collaborative advantage and a commitment to delivering meaningful and long term outcomes for the people we support.

Job Purpose

• Lead and develop a network of key partners to continually explore and understand urban trends in inner city rooflessness and homelessness, including seasonal trends to better inform the service delivery within your sphere of influence.
• Lead the organisation with expert knowledge of rough sleeping, complex lives of people we support, social and health inequalities, in addition to working in partnership and collaborating effectively with others, to combat the causes and effects of homelessness.
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of the concepts of Social Exclusion, Compound Trauma and Recovery; including knowledge of key documents and delivery insights within a national context.
• Provide immediate, creative and informed response to crisis situations/events in a way which is trauma-informed, risk assessed, and risk-managed in terms of wider organisational impact.
• Lead the development of a wide range of partnerships, solutions and responses which are solutions focused around a Multi-Agency Hub in the City Centre.
• Lead the development of our citywide street outreach program.
• Lead projects that support people experiencing complex lives.
• Occupy the strategic environment and act as a national resource for organisations in developing responses and evidence, rooted in best practice; this includes being upfront about challenges to be solved and being pragmatic and persistent about what it will take to achieve our ambition to end rough sleeping.
• Motivate, influence and empower service leadership and frontline staff to enable and develop diverse teams which deliver in line with the strategic vision.

You will report to the Director of Operations and work in harmony with other Heads of Service, and will look outwardly to develop your practice area in partnership with the Director of Operations. Your key responsibilities of this post will be to:

Inclusion and Participation

• Deliver excellent services for people affected by homelessness, who have multiple and complex needs and have experience of social exclusion and compound trauma
• Passionately advocate and champion change
• Promote professional autonomy and drive a positive culture which takes ownership
• Create a culture of shared learning using technology to support an agile workforce
• Champion a trauma informed approach embedded in our understanding, practice and engagement

Supportive & Ambitious

• Lead and manage a multiple-project and initiative portfolio and delegate effectively.
• Lead and guide the services in a manner that recognises, supports and develops team leadership capabilities, promoting ownership of the vision.
• Ensure professional practice in line with National Codes and Standards to drive quality services.
• Adopt a positive approach to risk, keep it simple, get it done and make it right.

Warmth & Regard

• Lead by example using the values, culture and ethos of Simon Community Scotland.
• Think and plan strategically, ensuring all resources are supported and accountable.
• Enable supported, intelligent and justifiable risk taking
• Recognise and value everyone (Equality and Diversity)
• Sensitively manage the continuing tensions between quality, time and cost.
• Make the difficult decisions, do it with kindness.

Partnership & Collaboration

• Effectively translate evidence into practice and measurable outcomes
• Demonstrate commitment to supporting people through positive change
• Develop and maintain strategic partnerships to learn and to share
• Confidently engage and communicate with all key partners, and create collaborative advantage
• Understands influences but also understands the values and perspectives of others
• Engage confidently with key partner agencies, including media outlets and social media

Personalised and Creative

• Be solution-focused, enabling and supporting people to deliver excellent, quality services.
• Demonstrate excellent project management capabilities that deliver evidence-based outcomes.
• Demonstrate adaptability and flexibility to meet the needs of the service as well as supporting strategic aims.
• Demonstrate and promote emotional courage and resilience, especially in crisis situations.
• Demonstrate the impact of service design and delivery utilising lived and living experience.

Key Performance Areas

• Build, lead and direct Service Leads, Coordinators and frontline staff teams that are continuously seeking to improve and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in delivering compassionate services.
• Ensuring we meet as a minimum all legal, regulatory, compliance and standards in order to continually raise the bar, going beyond expectations.
• Create the mechanisms and structures to support the development of frontline staff.
• Cultivating leadership and planning for succession within those services.
• Seek out appropriate validation of our progress through quality frameworks, audit systems, award programmes and recognition schemes, inside and outside the organisation.
• Be a leading figure in the development and sector-leading strategies and initiatives to support people facing multiple exclusions here, in Scotland, and across Europe.
• Lead the Service Leadership Team in the recruitment, deployment and development of talented people.
• Deliver services that positively change the experiences and outcomes for the people we support.
• Build and maintain exceptional relationships with regulators, commissioners, external bodies and partners we work with. Be supportive and enabling of other initiatives that support people.
• Actively collect and collate data throughout the services to strengthen decision making, outcomes and improvement plans through the use of good information.
• Represent the very best of our values and our ambitions for service users all aspects of the role, inside and outside the organisation.

Person Specification

Training & Qualifications

Essential:

•  SSSC recognised practice qualification and SVQ 4 Care Services Leadership and Management at SCQF Level 10, or willing to work towards.

Desirable:

• Health or social care qualification.

Experience

Essential:

• Experienced in leading and managing diverse teams and delivering services supporting people in the community.
• Able to operate across boundaries to support the strategic objectives of the vision and translate this into operational outcomes.
• Able to lead and direct people to deliver excellent, professional services in line with National Codes and Standards.
• Development and creation of partnerships

Desirable:

• Experience of homelessness services or/and lived experience.
• Redesign and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Experience of working with service staff to identify potential new opportunities, service improvement and better outcomes.

Knowledge & Skills

Essential:

• Excellent at managing resources including time, finance, people and self.
• Effective communicator face to face and in writing and uses social media to promote and influence to benefit and promote service development
• Adaptable and flexible to meet the needs of the service.
• Provide a calm and level head, lead by example and gain the support of others.
• Good analytical and lateral thinking skills.
• Strong administrative, IT and organisational skills.
• Completed funding or service applications.

Desirable:

• Understands the key issues facing homeless people.
• Understands the complex, challenging and competitive environment we are required to work within.
• Good attention to detail
• Good understanding of how to identify and qualify new approaches, evidence based practice and best practice solutions
• Must have good IT skills but familiar with or ready to understand data/CRM and Google Workspace.

Personal

Essential:

• Be honest and brave, celebrate success and take ownership and learning from failure. Not everything works out the first time.
• Be self motivated, up for a challenge and have a good work life balance.
• Be ambitious for the people we support, staff, self and SCS. Be a positive influence on others.
• Encourage a culture of delegation, ownership and accountability. Support your team to get it right, support them when they don’t.
• Do the right thing, and if you’re not sure what the right thing is, talk to your colleagues. Life is never black and white.
• Understand your budgets, manage your costs and invest in success.
• Excellent communication, reporting and interpersonal skills, representing SCS
• Professional and confident approach when dealing with a wide range of people.
• Willingness to undertake travel within the UK, Europe and wherever else there is a learning opportunity and inspiration.

Desirable:

• Able to adapt to change in the workplace, usually at a moment's notice!
• Cares about our environment and climate and can help make things a little better.
• Has lived experience of the challenges and impact of homelessness.