Associate Director (Advice, Wellbeing and Welfare)

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.

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.

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.

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.
• 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

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