Band 8a Community Service Manager - Bristol

Job description

Job summary

You'll lead the Reconnect Service, a strengths-based community support programme designed to help people rebuild meaningful connections, improve wellbeing, and engage confidently with their local communities.

As Community Service Manager, you'll oversee service delivery across Avon, Somerset and Wiltshireensuring high-quality, trauma-informed, person-centred support that empowers individuals to thrive. You'll be an inspiring leader with a passion for community-based mental health and wellbeing. You bring emotional intelligence, operational confidence, and a commitment to empowering people through connection and choice.

You will have:

• Leadership Experience in health, social care, mental health, or community services.
• Strong understanding of trauma-informed practice and strengths-based approaches.
• Experience managing teams across multiple sites or localities.
• Excellent partnership-building skills and confidence working with commissioners.
• Ability to interpret data, manage budgets, and oversee service performance.
• A values-driven approach centred on dignity, inclusion and co-production.

Main duties of the job

• Service Leadership Manage day-to-day operations across multiple localities, ensuring consistent, safe and effective delivery.
• Team Management Lead, supervise and develop a multidisciplinary team of Community Practitioners, Peer Workers and Volunteers.
• Partnership Development Build strong relationships with statutory, voluntary and community organisations to enhance pathways and collaboration.
• Quality & Governance Maintain high standards of safeguarding, risk management, data quality and compliance with commissioning requirements.
• Service Innovation Identify opportunities to evolve the Reconnect model, embedding co-production and lived experience.
• Performance Oversight Monitor KPIs, produce reports, and ensure the service meets contractual outcomes.
• Community Engagement Champion inclusion, accessibility and community-led approaches across the region.

About us

We are the lead provider of healthcare for people with serious mental illness, learning disabilities and autism across Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES), Swindon and Wiltshire, and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

We aim to provide High Quality, Compassionate Care everywhere, every day. This means our services will be safe, clinically effective and provide a positive all round experience for our patients, families and carers. And we believe passionately in treating everyone with kindness, respect and empathy.

Key to this is providing a supportive and safe environment for our 4,000 staff where we all feel welcome and able to do the best we can for those we support. Our staff and teams work incredibly hard delivering services across more than 90 locations, covering 2,200miles, to more than 1.8million people.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. This role is to provide management and leadership to a number of teams working within the LDU.This role will also help form a wide senior management team for the effective service in the LDU delivering specialised all core Mental Health Services for the Trust. This will be achieved by attendance to Business and Performance Management meetings, Governance structures andsupervision which requires 2-3 days a week at a nominated building within your LDU.

2. To provide vision and leadership on the delivery to a number of identified Mental Health Teams within your responsibility and remit.

3. To continue to maintain and enhance existing relationships with Commissioners, Partners and Stake Holders to improve outcomes for service users.

4. To continue to develop services that you have been given responsible for. To ensure the development and delivery of high quality, multi-disciplinary Mental Health Services across your services and to work with the local audit teams to maintain quality and consistency to ensure the development and delivery of high quality services.

5. To ensure the delivery of specialist advice, support and supervision in relation to the work of the Mental Health Services Managers and their teams. In the delivery of effective programmes and interventions for which the Trust has responsibility for, these can include medical, clinical and psychosocial.

6. To actively work with Team Leaders to generate Service User Involvement, Lived Experience and Peer Support within the teams and services you have responsibility for.

7. To take a guiding and supervisory role for the Team Leaders in your portfolio to ensure the safe and effective delivery of the Mental Health Services that you are responsible for. Helping meet targets and quality of delivery.

8. This role will be responsible for a range of community based services that maybe in different geographical areas. This post holder will hold a level of strategic vision in line with the Trusts clinical and medical strategy and will provide help and support in delivering this strategy.

9. This post will be responsible for delivering agreed financial limits and activity levels, in accordance with the Service, Trust and National policies, utilising available resources to achieve the most effective outcomes.

10. The post holder will initiate and support the development of quality improvements in the service, actively seek the views of their Manager, Service Users and Commissioners in these developments. They will also develop and implement long-term plans for improvements, design these improvements to fit within the Trusts strategy and policy, and remain within national guidelines for good practice.

11. This post holder will contribute to the development of a functioning LDU management team, to help ensure objectives and outcome measures are set and achieved within the service framework.

12. Another component will be the maximum development of staff potential and optimum staff performance, through appropriate training, development, professional supervision and appraisal of the staff.

13. The Community Service Manager will be responsible for the communication, implementation and monitoring of all relevant existing policies and procedures of the Trust (e.g. health and safety, complaints, grievance, disciplinary, etc.), and the development of appropriate new ones.

14. The community service Manager will ensure that staff meet contractual requirements and that staff morale at work is high.

Job description
Job responsibilities

1. This role is to provide management and leadership to a number of teams working within the LDU.This role will also help form a wide senior management team for the effective service in the LDU delivering specialised all core Mental Health Services for the Trust. This will be achieved by attendance to Business and Performance Management meetings, Governance structures andsupervision which requires 2-3 days a week at a nominated building within your LDU.

2. To provide vision and leadership on the delivery to a number of identified Mental Health Teams within your responsibility and remit.

3. To continue to maintain and enhance existing relationships with Commissioners, Partners and Stake Holders to improve outcomes for service users.

4. To continue to develop services that you have been given responsible for. To ensure the development and delivery of high quality, multi-disciplinary Mental Health Services across your services and to work with the local audit teams to maintain quality and consistency to ensure the development and delivery of high quality services.

5. To ensure the delivery of specialist advice, support and supervision in relation to the work of the Mental Health Services Managers and their teams. In the delivery of effective programmes and interventions for which the Trust has responsibility for, these can include medical, clinical and psychosocial.

6. To actively work with Team Leaders to generate Service User Involvement, Lived Experience and Peer Support within the teams and services you have responsibility for.

7. To take a guiding and supervisory role for the Team Leaders in your portfolio to ensure the safe and effective delivery of the Mental Health Services that you are responsible for. Helping meet targets and quality of delivery.

8. This role will be responsible for a range of community based services that maybe in different geographical areas. This post holder will hold a level of strategic vision in line with the Trusts clinical and medical strategy and will provide help and support in delivering this strategy.

9. This post will be responsible for delivering agreed financial limits and activity levels, in accordance with the Service, Trust and National policies, utilising available resources to achieve the most effective outcomes.

10. The post holder will initiate and support the development of quality improvements in the service, actively seek the views of their Manager, Service Users and Commissioners in these developments. They will also develop and implement long-term plans for improvements, design these improvements to fit within the Trusts strategy and policy, and remain within national guidelines for good practice.

11. This post holder will contribute to the development of a functioning LDU management team, to help ensure objectives and outcome measures are set and achieved within the service framework.

12. Another component will be the maximum development of staff potential and optimum staff performance, through appropriate training, development, professional supervision and appraisal of the staff.

13. The Community Service Manager will be responsible for the communication, implementation and monitoring of all relevant existing policies and procedures of the Trust (e.g. health and safety, complaints, grievance, disciplinary, etc.), and the development of appropriate new ones.

14. The community service Manager will ensure that staff meet contractual requirements and that staff morale at work is high.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Relevant education to degree level or ability to demonstrate equivalent level of knowledge and experience.
• Evidence of continued professional development.
• Formal management qualification at post-graduate diploma level or can demonstrate an equivalent level of knowledge and experience.
• Significant experience of managing health and/or social care staff and services.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working with people with mental health problems.
• Experience of multi-disciplinary, multi agency working and of representing an organisation on multi-agency groups.
• Experience of service development and evaluation work.
• Experience of working within complex mental health, primary care or social care settings.
• Experience of the supervision and management of staff.

Desirable

• Experience of successfully managing significant change.
• High-level analytical and problem-solving skills

Skills

Essential

• Advanced ability to form effective working relationships with other partners patient groups and stakeholders
• Highly developed interpersonal and diplomacy skills
• Ability to negotiate with commissioners and partners.
• Ability to develop and implement systems that support team development and cohesion.
• Ability to exercise appropriate management/professional judgement in the case of difficult or sensitive clinical and personnel issues and to be clear when specialist advice is needed and/or management is briefed.

Person Specification
Qualifications

Essential

• Relevant education to degree level or ability to demonstrate equivalent level of knowledge and experience.
• Evidence of continued professional development.
• Formal management qualification at post-graduate diploma level or can demonstrate an equivalent level of knowledge and experience.
• Significant experience of managing health and/or social care staff and services.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working with people with mental health problems.
• Experience of multi-disciplinary, multi agency working and of representing an organisation on multi-agency groups.
• Experience of service development and evaluation work.
• Experience of working within complex mental health, primary care or social care settings.
• Experience of the supervision and management of staff.

Desirable

• Experience of successfully managing significant change.
• High-level analytical and problem-solving skills

Skills

Essential

• Advanced ability to form effective working relationships with other partners patient groups and stakeholders
• Highly developed interpersonal and diplomacy skills
• Ability to negotiate with commissioners and partners.
• Ability to develop and implement systems that support team development and cohesion.
• Ability to exercise appropriate management/professional judgement in the case of difficult or sensitive clinical and personnel issues and to be clear when specialist advice is needed and/or management is briefed.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see

Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see

Employer details

Employer name

Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
Address

Blackberry Hill Hospital

Bristol

BS16 2JR

United Kingdom

Employer's website