Join Our Board of Trustees

New Beginnings Foundation CIO is a trauma-informed charity based in Greater Manchester. We exist to help parents understand how their childhood experiences may affect the way they parent now, so together we can break the cycle of intergenerational trauma and keep children safe from harm.

Background

Founded in partnership with Stockport Local Authority in 2018, New Beginnings works holistically with families who are known to Children’s Social Care for concerns relating to neglect and emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Our approach is rooted in story and reflection — giving parents the space to explore who they are, what they’ve lived through, and how they can move forward.

Now a registered charity (Charity No. 1198338), we are expanding our Board of Trustees to support the next phase of our journey.

We are particularly looking for trustees with experience in:

• Legislation (charity and/or child protection)
• CEO or third sector leadership
• Children’s Services / Child Protection across public and private sectors
• Fundraising and grant applications

Trustee Duties

• Ensuring the charity pursues its mission and complies with charity/company law
• Overseeing governance, financial stability, and long-term strategy
• Safeguarding the reputation, values, and assets of New Beginnings
• Supporting and appraising the Chief Executive
• Contributing skills and insight to strengthen board decision-making

Person Specification

• Commitment to New Beginnings’ core values and trauma-informed vision
• Capacity to devote time and energy to the role
• Strategic vision, creativity, and sound judgement
• Understanding of trustees’ legal responsibilities
• Ability to work collaboratively and with integrity
• Commitment to Nolan’s seven principles of public life

What You’ll Gain

• Be part of a supportive and passionate Board of Trustees
• Help shape the growth of a values-driven organisation
• Gain strategic leadership and charity governance experience
• Contribute directly to positive outcomes for families

Interested?

This is an open and ongoing recruitment process. There is no formal deadline, and we welcome informal discussions about the role.

To express interest or request more information, please contact:
Dr Ann Potter, Chair of the Board of Trustees
ann@nbfoundation.co.uk

Systemic Family Therapist

Contract: 3-year position
Hours: 35 hours per week
Salary: £53,755 - £60,504
Closing date: 5pm, Monday 20 April 2026

Benefits

• An annual paid leave entitlement that commences at 25 working days pro rata, plus bank holidays.
• NEST pension scheme
• Professional development with ongoing quality training and career development opportunities including the opportunity to train in VIG and/or DMM

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Systemic Family Therapist to join our attachment and trauma informed team at New Beginnings Foundation CIO, based in Stockport. For more information please see: www.nbfoundation.co.uk

New Beginnings Foundation is a charity that works to support families whose children are in contact with the child protection process. We work in partnership with Stockport Council and have been established since 2018. We have recognised the need for a new role in our service, the position of Systemic Family Therapist, who we hope to recruit to support parents and children and young people with complex needs to live at home. This new role, therefore, will offer outreach support to families who wish to remain together or who wish for their children to return to their care, although in some cases this may not be the outcome but support to both the children and parents will be provided nonetheless.

The successful candidate will join the New Beginnings team which consists of Attachment and Trauma Informed Social Workers, Support Workers and Peer Mentors, working jointly to provide holistic care planning, risk management and therapeutic treatment. The successful candidate will be based in Stockport, will receive management and supervision from the CEO of the charity and clinical supervision from a Senior Consultant Family Therapist.

We are looking for an experienced candidate who shares our passion for supporting families in the child protection system. We are looking for a qualified, registered therapist with training/experience in working with children who is skilled in working with complex trauma and is keen to develop their therapeutic skills in this area.

The successful candidate will be trauma-focused in their approach and have experience of working with children, young people and their parents/carers. They may also have additional clinical training in a specific trauma and/or attachment focused therapy (e.g. EMDR, TF-CBT, TF-Play Therapy, DDP, Theraplay).

The successful candidate needs to be able to think systemically about inter-generational trauma with an understanding of the different presentation and therapeutic recovery needs of children at different ages and stages. They will be committed to high quality therapy standards with a passion for using their therapy skills to facilitate good outcomes. As a team player the successful candidate will be keen to share their skills and specialisms and also learn from others. This is a 3-year position and as part of the role, it is expected that it will evolve and develop in line with national and local initiatives. This post is subject to an enhanced with children’s and adult’s barred list Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check.

Main duties of the job

• Where appropriate, to provide consultation on systemic working to relevant professional systems and colleagues.
• To develop and lead reflecting team practice with multidisciplinary colleagues as appropriate to both the service context and individuals and family’s needs.
• To formulate and devise support plans for a range of referred clients from a range of ages. This includes children and adults for both short and long-term treatment approaches.
• To provide specialist mental health advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals/ agencies to assist the plan of support.
• To carry a caseload of families requiring longer term family and systemic psychotherapy.
• To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner
• To liaise with other social care, health, education and residential staff or foster carers, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to clients from each service.
• To carry out clinical work with children and adults, on site and in the field (e.g. at client’s homes) to best meet the families’ needs.
• To attend weekly New Beginnings team meetings and attend and contribute to group supervision sessions.
• To attend and input professional meetings such as child protection conferences, looked after reviews, core group meetings, care planning meetings and legal planning meetings.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Post-graduate/ doctoral level qualification in family and systemic psychotherapy recognised by DOH and AFT.

Desirable Criteria

• To have knowledge or experience of the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM)
• To have knowledge or experience of Video Interaction Guidance (VIG)
• Family and systemic psychotherapy supervision training recognised by AFT

Knowledge & Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working directly with children of all ages.
• Ability to be creative when working with children who have experienced significant trauma
• Working autonomously with families providing an assessment and treatment service
• Contributing to multidisciplinary team meetings and co-working assessments and treatment within clinic-based settings
• Case managing families requiring longer term family and systemic psychotherapy.

Desirable criteria

• Additional clinical training in a specific trauma and/or attachment focused therapy (e.g. EMDR, TF-CBT, TF-Play Therapy, DDP, Theraplay).
• Experience working on complex cases including with families in contact with the child protection system.
• Five or more years’ experience post qualification (e.g. NHS band 8a or 8b).

Values

Essential criteria

• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented and adaptable.

Skills

Essential criteria

• High-level knowledge of the theory and practice of family and systemic psychotherapy.
• Strong consultation and therapeutic skills
• Knowledge and skills in effective communication, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues
• Ability to work autonomously and manage complex cases
• Ability to form good working relationships and work flexibly with others in a multidisciplinary and multi-agency settings
• Knowledge and skills of a range of models in the assessment and support of children, adults and families.
• Knowledge of the relevant clinical research literature and ability to apply it to field of child and family mental health
• Knowledge of children's safeguarding policies and child protection
• Capability to supervise and train practitioners
• Proven experience in service development and evaluation

Essential criteria

• Systemic Family Therapist with UKCP registration

Apply

Please complete our application form to apply for this role.