board trustees - oxford hr · board trustees. 4. about us. st christopher’s is a charity creating...

BOARD TRUSTEESNOVEMBER 2018

St Christopher’s Fellowship - Board Trustees 2

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Welcome from Bert O’Donoghue, Chair

What do people say about our services?

About us

Our Strategy

Our Vision and Mission

Innovating for Growth

Our Values

Financial Strength

Role Profile

Duties of our Trustees

Role

How to Apply

Where are we today?

Moving Forward

Purpose

Person Specification

About Oxford HR


St Christopher’s is looking for trustees who are passionate about giving children and young people in care the same opportunities as every other child.

It’s an exciting time at St Christopher’s - we have a bold new strategy and a new Chief Executive. To support this new strategy and the work of the Chief Executive and his team, we are seeking to recruit some additional trustees with specific expertise. This will help us achieve our strategic goal of doubling the number of children and young people we work with by 2023.

We are seeking trustees with a strong human resources background that can help us to continue the development of our employee brand and making St Christopher’s an even better place for our staff to work. It is only through our people that we can continue to develop brighter futures for the children and young people who we work with, so retaining and developing staff is key to achieving our ambitious goals.

One of the elements of our strategy is lifelong learning - one part of this has been the

opening of an independent school in London. This is a first step for us, driven by what our commissioners tell us is a need for specialist education services for young people who are not engaged with the traditional system. We are early in our journey here so there is exciting scope for a trustee to guide us on our voyage.

We welcome expressions of interest from anyone with experience in these areas who would like to be part of our mission to create brighter futures for children and young people.

With kind regards,

Bert O’DonoghueChairman

If you would like a confidential discussion about these Board Trustee opportunities, please contact our retained Oxford HR Consultant, Dr. Marc Lambert on T: 01279 758 572 or via email at [email protected].

Welcome from Bert O’Donoghue, Chair


About UsSt Christopher’s is a charity creating brighter futures for children and young people in care. As a leading provider of children’s services, we always seek to develop our practice and find improved ways of supporting young people.

Founded in 1870, we work across the UK and Isle of Man and alongside young people to support their development, grow their confidence and help them reach their full potential.At St Christopher’s we:

• work with about 1,000 children and young people each year• run 36 services for children and young people across the UK and the Isle of Man• employ almost 400 staff across our services to support our children and young people• work with about 50 local authorities through block contract and spot purchase

arrangements• have a turnover of approximately £18 million, substantially through commissioned

services.

All the commissioned services we deliver to local government in the UK and to the Isle

of Man Government are gained through a competitive commissioning or tender process. They are underpinned by the same values and the same goal to support children and young people to fulfil their potential, grow into responsible adults and make a positive contribution to society.

Our work is shaped by the ‘Head, Heart, Hands’ principles of social pedagogy. The Head represents the evidence-base behind our practice; Heart is for the meaningful relationships we forge with young people; and the Hands symbolise how we equip young people for real life by empowering them to make decisions.

Our commitment to providing excellent care has been ongoing since 1870 – we actively involve young people and staff in decisions that involve them and in how we run our organisation. We are committed to piloting new services and developing best practice to share with the sector.

Our approach to children’s social care is also reflected in our values. Working in this way allows us to build trust and empower people to do their best, whatever their role.


providing fostering, residential and support services where children and young people can feel safe and cared for. We support them to build positive relationships which give them the confidence to succeed.

Our Vision and Mission St Christopher’s vision is for every child and young person to be safe, loved & happy, to achieve their potential and have a bright future.

Our mission is to create brighter futures for children and young people. We do this by

Our ValuesCaring. We care about children, young people and our staff, and build positive relationships. We know that trusting relationships transform lives, and our staff and carers work to promote positive relationships with children, young people, and their families and friends. We are always looking to improve how we work together within St Christopher’s and how we work with our commissioners and supporters.

Respectful. We are respectful of every individual, and value the strengths in everyone. Our approach is founded on a commitment to individual human rights. Our teams are valued for what they bring, and they support children and young people to be who they want to be.

Professional. We are professional and committed to reflection and continuous learning. We have high standards, and we learn and improve by reflecting together.

Flexible. We are flexible and agile so that we can be fit for the future. We do everything we can to respond to the individual and changing needs of the children and young people we look after, and to respond to what each of our commissioners want us to deliver.

Honest. We are honest about what we can do, and optimistic about the future. We don’t promise what we can’t deliver, and we strive to achieve more.

Creative. We are creative, and passionate about positive change. The best insights into how to create positive change come when we listen to children and young people. We do things together and have fun together so that we can create energy and enthusiasm for change. We are innovative, push boundaries, and use data and evidence to continually improve.


Where are we today?

What do people say about our services?

St Christopher’s is one of the leading providers of services for children and young people in the voluntary sector. As a registered charity, we work across the UK and the Isle of Man running successful residential and fostering services.

We are a child-focused organisation that places young people at the centre of everything we do. Our six values run through all of our work.

The principles of social pedagogy shape our philosophy of care. This is a holistic approach that centres on building positive relationships with young people to bring out their full potential. Young people really feel the benefits of this – they say that staff understand them better, which means they can trust them more. They are supported by staff to try things for themselves and learn from their experiences, even if it means making some mistakes along the way.

We use the internationally benchmarked Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and Attachment Style Interviews to create tailored care plans for young people, and the quality of our care is guaranteed through external evaluation by the Centre for Abuse and Trauma Studies at Middlesex University. No other provider works with these tools in such an enmeshed way to get better outcomes for young people.

At St Christopher’s, staff continually develop their skills and knowledge through our comprehensive training programmes. We run core induction training for new starters and we have embraced social pedagogy, our core philosophy of care, across all of our services.

We invest heavily in our staff because we value them – without them, we wouldn’t be able to make a difference to so many young people’s lives.

Young people are supported to develop their skills too so that they will be prepared for living independently as adults. They can earn nationally recognised AQA, and other qualifications that support them with living skills and skills to secure employment, training or places in education. Some 82% of the children and young people we looked after in the last year were in education, employment or training.

Participation is key to what we do. Young people in our care are always encouraged and supported to have their say, whether it’s giving feedback on the way their home is run, recruiting staff and trustees, or contributing to government reports on the future of children’s services. We want them to know that their opinions are valued and that we’re always ready to listen and act, and 100% of young people living with St Christopher’s say they feel respected.

“Young people achieve positive outcomes and are provided with high quality care within a warm, caring, nurturing environment with firm and consistent boundaries.” Outstanding Ofsted Inspection

The service provides excellent care for young people... The staff group are versatile and dynamic and present as dedicated and professional.” Isle of Man Inspection report“Children are all engaged in education and achieving high attendance levels. An established staff team works positively to help children address and reduce concerning behaviours.” Ofsted report

“They’ve built my confidence up sky high. When I’m here they just make me feel good about myself.” Young person

“They cheer me up and make me laugh. They know how to sort out problems.” Young person

“The fostering manager… made us both feel totally at ease. As we held many stereotypes about social workers, we were thrilled to discover how down to earth and broad minded the team were. We chatted about many things and knew that St Christopher’s was right for us.” Foster carer

“One of the reasons I really enjoy working here is that the human experience is genuinely important... people’s experience here matters, more than any other organisation I’ve been in.” Staff member


Our Strategy ‘Brighter futures for double the number of children and young people by 2023’

St Christopher’s recognises that to create brighter futures for more children and young people we need to be strategically focused, and have clarity about our goals, to enable us to be agile and flexible in responding to different opportunities to achieve our ambition.

Through dialogue with our young people, carers, staff and stakeholders, we have committed to three strategic aims over the next five years:

1. Create more excellent homes, fostering and support for children and young people.Children and young people have told us that it’s the relationships with carers in ourfostering and residential services that make their houses feel like homes. Over the nextfive years we want to offer more excellent homes to even more children in care and careleavers. We will do this by focusing on growing our residential, fostering & support toprovide services to double the number of children and young people by 2023.

2. Improve emotional wellbeing.We will develop clinical therapeutic input across all of our services, so young people,

carers and staff receive the expert advice and support they need, when they need it. Building on our existing strengths in attachment theory and social pedagogy, we will partner with mental health organisations to develop holistic, empowering, relationship-centred ways to improve emotional wellbeing.

3. Promote lifelong learning & thriving.Our staff succeed with some of the most excluded young people through relationship-centred, creative approaches to learning that equip them for life in the world. We willincrease capacity in the education & life skills teams to support more young people toachieve. We will expand the number of young people to whom we offer work experienceto 5% of our workforce by 2023. We will also collaborate with young people to help makeeach step of their journey to independence easier, maintaining important relationshipswith people that matter most, whether friends, family, carers, or St Christopher’s staff. Wewill continue to invest in training and supporting our staff to enhance learning and developskills to promote growth and career progression.


Innovating for Growth

Financial Strength

Moving Forward

Over recent years we have faced a challenging external environment, with continuing cuts in public funding having a direct impact on our entire sector. However, despite these challenges we continue to deliver brighter futures for the children and young people we look after by driving through even greater levels of efficiency and reducing costs, which has enabled us to have a greater focus on front line services where the real impact of our work is felt.

We have continued to innovate in our service delivery, demonstrated by piloting our Safe Steps children’s home to care for girls aged 12 to 17 who are at particular risk of child sexual exploitation or other serious community threats. We have developed holistic wraparound services to support children and young people. Most recently, we have introduced our Staying Close provision for young people funded by the DfE’s innovation fund and opened our first independent school to support young people we look after who are not in mainstream education. We have also contributed to the national review of children’s residential care in England and other consultations, and we continue to be inspired by the successes and development of the children and young people we work with, actively engaging them in all aspects of what we do.

We remain in a strong financial position, and our balance sheet shows a healthy net asset position. Following a couple of challenging years, we have moved back into a surplus for

St Christopher’s will continue to provide high quality services, developing innovative services and best practice, and being an organisation that policy makers choose to consult when considering issues relevant to looked after children, care leavers and vulnerable young people. Council (our board of Trustees) and the Senior Leadership Team will ensure that the organisation remains financially sustainable.

We have actively sought and successfully achieved our ambition to refocus our activities and our investments for future growth on front-line support. Across the organisation, we operate an open and inclusive management style which means that we actively listen and have an open dialogue with staff and the young people we look after. This is giving better outcomes for those we are entrusted to care for and an improved work environment for our staff.

We have also undertaken a comprehensive review of our governance which has led to a board of Trustees that is more constructive and challenging and which makes a greater contribution to the delivery of our mission – creating brighter futures for children and young people – than ever before. This review led to two new trustee appointments, both individuals who bring valuable experience of children’s services and a deep understanding of the commissioning environment.

2017/2018. Additionally, we currently hold substantial cash in our bank accounts.

We also recognise that new initiatives and services can require an initial investment, prior to services becoming financially sustainable in the longer term. Consequently, we aim to ensure that we have sufficient reserves to both manage risk and develop new services.

Role Profile


Title: Trustees

Location: 1 Putney High Street, London, SW15 1SZ

Reporting to: Council (Board)

Responsible for: Trustees are expected to attend meetings of the Council (Board meetings), which are held every 6-8 weeks, normally on weekday evenings. There is an additional expectation of attendance at one or more away-days per year, which may be held on a weekend.

Remuneration: The role of Trustee does not attract any financial remuneration, although expenses for travel may be claimed.

health; the probity of its activities; and developing the organisation’s aims, objectives and goals in accordance with the governing document, legal and regulatory guidelines.

PurposeOur Trustees ensure that St Christopher’s fulfils its duty to its beneficiaries and delivers on our vision, mission and values. Members of the Board of Trustees are jointly and severally responsible for the overall governance and strategic direction of the charity; its financial

RoleSt Christopher’s seeks to appoint two new members of the Board who have a strong empathy with our mission to create brighter futures for children and young people. Experience, skills and expertise in strategic human resources or education, and both with an interest in children and young people are essential, as well as track record of achieving

positive outcomes, combined with an in-depth understanding of our work and its impact.

Our Trustees are also encouraged to visit our services, attending engagement events, talking to staff and young people and being supportive of our frontline services.


Duties of our Trustees • To ensure that St Christopher’s complies with its Memorandum and Articles of

Association, charity law, company law and any other relevant legislation or regulations. • To ensure that St Christopher’s pursues its objects as defined in its Memorandum and

Articles of Association.• To ensure that St Christopher’s applies its resources exclusively in pursuance of its

objects, i.e. St Christopher’s must not spend money on activities which are not included in its own objects, no matter how worthwhile or charitable those activities are.

• To contribute actively to Council’s role in giving firm strategic direction to the organisation, setting overall policy, defining goals and setting targets, and evaluating performance against agreed targets.

• To safeguard the good name and values of St Christopher’s.• To ensure the effective and efficient administration of the organisation.• To ensure the financial stability of the organisation. • To protect and manage the property of the charity and to ensure the proper investment

of the charity’s funds. • To appoint the Chief Executive and monitor his/her performance.

In addition to the above duties, each Trustee should use any specific skills, knowledge or experience that help the Board of Trustees reach sound decisions, and more broadly outside meetings to support St Christopher’s work. This may involve scrutinising Council papers, leading discussions, focusing on key issues and providing advice and guidance on new initiatives or on other issues in which the Trustee has special expertise.

The above list of duties is indicative only and not exhaustive. Trustees are expected to perform all such additional duties as are reasonably commensurate with the role.

Trustees are also required to adhere to St Christopher’s Trustee Code which sets out the expectations of Trustees.


Person SpecificationFor these appointments, we seek two Trustees who will bring to the Board, experience, skills and expertise in strategic human resources or education, both with an interest in children and young people, and a track record of achieving positive outcomes, combined with an in-depth understanding of our work and its impact.

• A commitment to the mission and vision of St Christopher’s.• A willingness to devote the necessary time and effort to undertaking the role of Trustee.• Strategic vision.• Good, independent judgement.• An ability to think creatively.

• A willingness to speak their mind and do the right thing.• An understanding and acceptance of legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of

trusteeship.• An ability to work effectively as a member of a team and within an agreed consensus.• A willingness to invest time to engage and understand the organisation and the sector

and undertake training necessary to discharge the role of Trustee of St Christopher’s.• Displaying Nolan’s seven principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity,

accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.


How to ApplyTo apply for this position, please submit an application through our website with a copy of your CV, together with a supporting statement or email your documents to [email protected].

Please ensure that your submission fully addresses the appointment criteria in the person specification.

You should provide the names, positions, organisations and contact telephone numbers of two referees. References will only be taken once your express permission has been granted.

We would be grateful if you could also let us know if you require any special provision because of any disability should you be called for interview.

Finally, please ensure that you have included your mobile and home telephone numbers, as well as dates when you will not be available or might have difficulty with the indicative timetable.

Timeline Closing date: Preliminary interviews with Oxford HR: Stakeholder meetings and final Panel Interviews:

These dates may be subject to change and applicants will be advised in advance should this happen.

Selection process All candidates will receive feedback within four working days of the closing date. Shortlisted candidates may be required to undertake an additional assessment prior to the final interview.

QuestionsIf you have any further questions on any aspect of the appointment process, need additional information or would like to have an informal confidential discussion, please contact Dr Marc Lambert on T: 01279 758 572 or via email at [email protected].

Friday 18th January TBCTBC


About Oxford HROxford HR operates globally - mainly within the international development and UK charity sectors. We carry out retained executive search mandates at board and senior management levels. We also offer human resource and organizational development consultancy.

Oxford HR has many years of experience in search as well as an extensive network of international development, social sector, corporate, public sector and academic contacts

from across the world. We carry out comprehensive and often international searches designed to meet the specific needs of our clients.

Oxford HR’s team members have significant personal experience of working in international development and the social sector as well as the corporate and governmental sectors. We are in a unique position to find and assess talented individuals from a variety of backgrounds.


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