All jobs The deadline for applications is Sunday 7th January 2023.
Location: London, hybrid working (8 days a month in person). We also welcome applications from outside the UK.
Reporting to: Chief Executive Officer
Manages: The Programme Group
Annual salary: £100,000 - £118,000 GBP
Contract type: Permanent
Working hours: Full-time
Candidate level: Director
Background
Lumos is an international children’s charity founded in 2005 by children’s author J.K. Rowling to end the harmful practice of the institutionalisation of children. Lumos’s mission is to fight for every child’s right to a family by transforming care systems around the world. Our vision is for all children to grow up in safe and loving families or, where there is no alternative, in specialist placements that meet all their needs, respect their rights, and ensure they can fulfil their potential despite clear evidence of the harms of institutionalisation. An estimated 5.4 million children worldwide continue to live in institutions, separated from their families and communities, these children are deprived of the love, attention and opportunities they need to thrive. We’ve made important progress in preventing the separation of children, closing harmful institutions and reuniting children with their families. And where children are unable to live with their birth families, we promote alternative family-based care, such as kinship care and quality foster care. Thanks to our tireless efforts alongside many other champions of care reform, the harms of institutionalisation are now more widely understood. A global movement is underway and the UN, the EU and some large development agencies have joined individual countries in pledging to change how they care for vulnerable children. We are committed to ensuring that global policy commitments are translated into local action, leading to sustainable change for vulnerable children. But despite these achievements, millions of children continue to live in institutions globally and until more countries adopt quality system-wide reform at national levels, this grave problem will persist.
Over the past 15 years, Lumos has worked directly in several countries to safely transform systems of care and protection, helping to ensure children can grow up in loving families rather than harmful orphanages, and demonstrating that change is possible. Encouragingly national governments and major stakeholders are increasingly committing to transition away from harmful institutional models of care. However, many lack the know-how to develop holistic alternative solutions which support family and community-based care, and it is not possible for Lumos and others in our sector to work directly in every country. Building on our heritage and direct experience of systems reform, our new strategy focuses on sharing learning with others to reach more children and amplify the impacts of our work on children’s lives. This will allow Lumos work to benefit more children and families and achieve an impact greater than the sum of its parts.
Our new strategy has four strategic objectives:
SO1: Prevent separation of children and facilitate their reintegration into families or family-based alternative care.
SO2: Strengthen National Child Protection and Welfare systems to transform the provision of protection and care.
SO3: Increase Commitments and Action for Global and National Care reform.
SO4: Amplify and strengthen the engagement and agency of impacted children, youth and parents/caretakers (lived experience).
Purpose of role
Programmes
The Programme Director is a key leadership role for overseeing and managing the international and HQ programmes and projects in Lumos, and deputising for the CEO. This role includes strategic planning, programme design, development, delivery and measurement of results, developing and nurturing strategic partnerships and financial management of the programmes group – the largest group in the organisation.
The Programmes Group comprises 40 staff, with four major country programmes and regional activities. The Programmes Director will lead the overall design, delivery, monitoring and reporting of our programme’s portfolio, ensuring strong and effective management of the group, and enhancing relationships with our growing number of programmatic and advocacy partners.
Leading and developing people
Fostering commitment to Lumos’s vision, mission, values, thriving at work initiatives and the strategic plan, the Programme Director will quip team members to leverage these in their work to deliver the programmatic strategic plan. Additionally, the incumbent will develop relationships across teams and the organisation as the foundation for building trust and connectedness in achieving successful action. They will lead by example, ensuring well-being and performance are supported, nurtured and developed, and support the team in the development and implementation of ambitious team plans, activities and budgets, removing blockages and promoting exceptional cross-team project planning and delivery.
Strategic leadership
The Programme Director will work as part of the Executive Leadership Team to evolve the organisation culture, building an open and transparent approach to managing and developing people. Speaking with one voice, supporting and challenging each other to ensure the best outcomes for Lumos, together with the ELT, the Programme Director will develop and deliver Lumos’s strategy, jointly accepting responsibility and accountability for the successes and challenges presented.
The incumbent will represent Lumos in international fora and assume organisational responsibilities for key strategic partnerships and participation in collaborative initiatives such as the Better Care Networks Transforming Children’s Care Global Collaborative Platform, the European Expert Group on the transition from institutional to family and community-based care among others. They will also continue to strengthen the coherence of our programmatic work at a country level, ensuring alignment with the vision, mission, strategic priorities and values of the organisation. They will build meaningful partnerships with children and young people, families and communities that are cross-cutting, impactful, and at the heart of our approach. Also, the Programme Director will bring an up-to-date and strategically framed understanding of the way in which the organisational context is impacting our programmes, and the initiative to adapt delivery to the best interests of children. Safeguarding will naturally be a key responsibility.
Programme management
The Programme Director will provide strategic oversight and management of Lumos’ programmes from across the diverse contexts where we are operating, promoting internal and external knowledge sharing and capacity strengthening. The Director will support ongoing performance improvement in key areas, including planning, project and programme design, delivery, monitoring and learning processes to enable Lumos to consistently enhance the quality, efficiency, and impact of our programming.
They will also support the strengthening of learning and knowledge management to enable the distillation and compelling communication of best practice, outcomes and impact. They will oversee the publication of high-quality reports & other publications and effectively leverage learning and evidence for enhancing programme design and delivery, advocacy and fundraising purposes, ensuring that Lumos retains its reputation as a thought leader able to support and catalyse reform and change in care reform systems globally. Working cross-functionally with colleagues in fundraising and engagement, the Programme Director will strengthen the ability to develop and articulate a compelling case for support which forms the bedrock of our marketing, communications, and fundraising. Ensuring accountability to funding requirements – ensuring ‘fundability’ of our programme work and working with fundraisers to leverage the funding required to deliver our impact.
Collaborative leadership
The Programme Director must work with colleagues to promote a strong, inclusive and dynamic culture that supports wellbeing, health, and safety. They must be curious, collaborative and creative, working together with others to strengthen the management of the group; ensure high quality implementation of projects and country programmes; deliver impactful evidence-based advocacy that can catalyse and drive change for children and families.
This is a key externally facing role, working with a variety of partners, ranging from local agencies implementing care reform on the ground to multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Transforming Care Collective, and UN agencies like the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Organisational development
The Director will be responsible for supporting the implementation of our new strategy and operational model, further to a recent strategic review. The operational model is designed to enable our country programmes to operate with greater sustainability and legitimacy and to support them to develop a more powerful national and regional mandate.
Each country's programme is currently underpinned by a clear strategic framework, but these will need to be revised to ensure that they align with the new strategic priorities. The Director will need to work with teams to ensure that implementation of these frameworks is enhanced by robust business plans which articulate how programmes will become increasingly sustainable, resilient, effectively governed and designed to deliver maximum impact. They will support Lumos to build accountability to children, families and communities and build sustainable processes and structures to ensure that their perspectives are listened to and valued will be one of several dimensions which need strengthening as part of this. It will also require the further development of our programmatic child protection and childcare capacity, programme monitoring, programme reporting learning and evaluation and information management systems so that we can more effectively assess as well as evidence-base our progress toward our vision.
Key objectives
The job holder will have the following key responsibilities:
- The Director of Programmes will also support the organisation, deputising for the CEO, either in the CEO’s absence or to oversee delivery of specific tasks.
- Work closely with the CEO, Board and Co-Charing the Programme Advisory Group (PAG) to ensure the organisation fulfils its mission and strategic objectives.
- Work collaboratively and cross-functionally with the Executive Leadership Team and Country Directors to ensure effective leadership and management of the organisation.
- Provide excellent leadership and development of our talented staff.
- Provide overarching strategic leadership and management for the Programmes Group.
- Socialise and embed the new organisational strategy across the programmes group and work with Country Teams to adjust country strategies to ensure that they align with the new strategic priorities and operational model.
- Establish strategic alliances and manage key strategic relationships with relevant and appropriate stakeholders and partners to advocate for change.
- Establish partnerships with high-level stakeholders capable of driving forward care reform - including governments, national systems leaders and influential intermediary organisations.
- Gather strategic intelligence to shape Lumos’ future direction and maximise income opportunities for the organisation working closely with the Directors of Fundraising & Engagement and Director of Institutional funding.
- Oversee systematic strengthening of design delivery, programme monitoring, reporting and evaluation and learning processes to ensure the production of robust evidence that can be used to: (a) inform the development of high quality, evidence-based capacity development, (b) inform the development of learning products for internal and external partner use; and (c) influence stakeholders to increase their understanding of commitment to and demonstrable action to advance care reform.
- Systematically strengthen accountabilities to children, caregivers and communities through effective engagement, mobilisation and participation.
- Scope global developments in transforming care and responses to different drivers of institutionalisation, in collaboration with other managers in the Programmes Group to ensure that Lumos can inform, and be informed by, innovative care reform programmes.
- Work closely with fundraising colleagues, including the Institutional Fundraising Director to develop and report on income generation opportunities.
- Ensure compliance with and effective implementation of the organisational safeguarding strategy, and that risks are managed effectively.
- Other tasks as reasonably required.
Experience and skills
- Significant experience of organisational development, ideally within a High-Level NGO and/or INGO, with a focus on Child Protection, Childcare Reform, building resilience and resourcing.
- Experience of strategic leadership in a complex organisation, ideally one whose work is both ‘on the ground’ and influences at a high level e.g., at National Level with international experience, UN, INGOs or related fields.
- Knowledge of the international development sector, specifically related to children and young people and key current challenges and opportunities.
- An ability to work collaboratively and effectively with a wide variety of external partners and stakeholders, including across other NGOs and alliances, UN agencies, representatives of multilateral organisations, and funders.
- A demonstrated ability to manage and oversee complex and multi-layered programmes spanning a broad range of countries and contexts.
- An evident commitment to putting lived experience at the heart of programmatic work, and by extension, collaborating to ensure it shapes advocacy, fundraising and communications.
- Working knowledge of child protection and childcare reform issues and experience developing a strong culture of safeguarding.
- Demonstrable experience as an inclusive leader, a role model for building a positive, open, collaborative and empowering culture, with a track record of coaching and mentoring others.
- Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills with a wide variety of internal audiences across varied cultural contexts.
- A global mindset, with demonstrable appreciation of the value of partner-led programmes.
- An empathetic, honest, empowering management and leadership style, with a demonstrable commitment to equity and inclusivity.
- An exceptional communicator, able to represent the organisation in an ambassadorial role.
- Creativity and a willingness to balance business as usual with innovation.
- A high level of rigour and attention to detail, including strong planning, project design, delivery, measurement and programme financial skills.
- An ability to see – and shape – the big picture – national and Global Care Reform.
- A commitment to supporting our values.
We will keep your personal data carefully and within the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations.
Lumos is wholly committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post, including checks with past employers and the Criminal Records Bureau. For these reasons, the recruitment process will include a relevant DBS check. Additionally, Lumos is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and against all forms of discrimination.
If you have any questions about the role or organisation and would like an informal chat ahead of submitting a formal application, please reach out to Zoe Oldham at zoeoldham@darylupsall.com. An applicant’s pack is available upon request at the same email.
The deadline for application is Sunday 7th January 2024
The first round of interviews will take place in remotely on the week commencing Wednesday 24th January 2024.
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