Associate Director (Advice, Wellbeing and Welfare)

About Us

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

Advice, Wellbeing & Welfare provide expert advice and support to our diverse community. At any stage in their university career, students may experience a variety of complex problems relating to money, housing, and welfare issues for which they need practical support and legal advice. Our work is to ensure that these do not become a barrier to their success at King’s and that through our wellbeing initiatives our students thrive during their studies to make the most of their opportunities after graduation.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.

About the Role

The Associate Director (Advice, Wellbeing and Welfare) will lead and manage a team in the key strategic areas of Advice & Guidance, and Wellbeing and Welfare, to support and guide students through their time at King’s.

The post-holder will lead in co-ordinating and delivering the work around student wellbeing and welfare, through oversight of the faculty-embedded hub-and-spoke model. They will also provide oversight and leadership to the advice and guidance team, including money and housing advice, and support for vulnerable groups. They will also have oversight of the Student of Concern welfare team. The postholder will have a lead role around the safeguarding of current students, acting as a key escalation point for referrals to external agencies such as Prevent, social services, and the emergency services.

The post holder will proactively engage with faculty colleagues and others in Education & Students to ensure that institution-wide support is leveraged, and that initiatives around wellbeing, welfare, advice and guidance are well understood, consulted on, and implemented in an integrated way, in partnership with colleagues across King’s and KCLSU. Some key partners will include the visa and international advice team; the safeguarding policy team, and the transition and continuation team.

We are looking for an individual who shares our aspirations and our values, who is comfortable working strategically and operationally, who understands how to deliver support and services to students and other end-users, and who is equipped to work in a high volume, complex and fast-paced environment.

Associate Directors have operational responsibility for a defined portfolio of education and student professional services, as:

• a divisional lead within the Students and Education Directorate;
• the professional services education and students lead within an academic faculty; or
• the lead of defined function-wide transformation initiatives.

The Associate Directors work within and across teams and functions, engaging with a wide-range of colleagues across King’s to drive a positive and transformative impact on the student experience. This includes ensuring:

• that services are delivered efficiently and consistently across King’s;
• the mutual role of service users and those delivering services are understood so that the services deliver value and impact;
• the key measures of service effectiveness reflect the reality on the ground;
• the mutual dependencies of services across and within functions are managed to embed a culture of service, transparency and continuous improvement across King’s.

Associate Directors will have an excellent understanding of the priorities, cultures, and pressures of a research-led university, and of academic processes and the structure of the academic year.

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.

This post will be offered on an indefinite contract.

This is a full-time post, but we welcome applications from candidates seeking a flexible work pattern within our necessary service operating hours.

This is currently a hybrid working role with both work from home and on campus. The role will be based in our department, currently on the Strand campus

Key Responsibilities

• Managing and coordinating all Wellbeing, Welfare and Advice-related activities
• Establishing key performance indicators to measure the success of the service the effectiveness of Advice, Wellbeing and Welfare-related initiatives, making strategic adjustments as necessary, feeding into service improvements and/or projects
• Proactively engaging with faculty colleagues and others in Education & Students to ensure that institution-wide support is leveraged, and that initiatives around wellbeing, welfare, advice and guidance are well understood, consulted on, and implemented in an integrated way
• Partnering with KCLSU, and embedding a range of approaches to student advice, wellbeing and welfare, to ensure that the Students’ Union and the student body can contribute to the development and implementation of activities in all these areas
• Actively contributing to our work on embedding inclusive practice, and anti-racist provision
• Linking up with other Associate Directors in Student Services, in relation to areas of common concern (e.g., Fitness to Study, Fitness to Practice, Student of Concern, and Prolonged Lack of Contact policies and procedures)
• Taking a lead role around the safeguarding of current students, acting as a key escalation point for referrals to external agencies such as Prevent, social services, and the emergency services
• Stay abreast of sector-wide developments in wellbeing, welfare and advice
• Supporting the training, mentoring, development and career progression of colleagues in the function
• Deputising for the Strategic Director where necessary, e.g., as one of the alternative points of contact in the event of the death of a student

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Please clearly address how you meet the essential criteria in your application, and where possible how you meet the desirable criteria as well.

Essential criteria

• Relevant work experience / education: We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience would include experience of managing advice, wellbeing and welfare teams. Relevant educational experiences might include a higher education qualification in social work or a related discipline, professional qualifications or other training
• Experience of drafting policies and procedures, considering these from a safeguarding/legal perspective, and ensuring that such documentation aligns with institutional priorities and sector-wide best practice
• Familiarity with good practice around advice, wellbeing and welfare, and an understanding of evolving practice in and beyond the sector
• Experience in research and data analysis and the development of large-scale communication plans with excellent writing skills and the ability to incorporate feedback from multiple sources and diverse perspectives
• The proven ability to lead and support a team managing complex case work, including learning lessons from complex cases, developing practice and procedure, and peer-to-peer support
• Ability to engage in collaborative working across King’s professional services, other Faculties, academic and student communities, with a meaningful and visible commitment to Diversity & Inclusion policies and practices.
• Strong organisational and time management skills, with demonstrated ability to manage multiple deliverables at once and consistently meet tight deadlines
• Ability to lead, coordinate and inspire a network of colleagues across a large organisation via a ‘dotted line’ relationship – i.e., through influence and effective negotiation, rather than line management

Desirable criteria

• A relevant professional qualification, e.g. in social work related disciplines

Further information

 Please submit a personal statement when applying for this vacancy, clearly setting out how you meet the essential criteria, as this is how we shortlist applications. Learn more about how we recruit, including tips on writing your application and supporting statement on our website:   https://jobs.kcl.ac.uk/gb/en/applying

If you are a student / alumni of King’s there are resources from   King’s Careers and Employability to support you in your application and interview.

Interviews will be held in person on the Strand campus and will consist of a presentation by the candidate, followed up competency-based questions linked closely to the essential and desirable criteria mentioned here.

Although we have made improvements over the last number of years, our team is still under-represented in terms of staff from global majority ethnicities, LGBTQ+ identities, and from people with disabilities. We encourage applications from all backgrounds, communities and industries, and are committed to employing a team that has diverse skills, experiences and abilities.
 

Interviews are scheduled to take place on Thursday 20 April 2023.