Early Help: Lead Practitioner, Substance Use Specialist

About the Role

The Bridge Project is pleased to announce an exciting opportunity for an Early Help Lead Practitioner, Substance Use Specialist.

The Early Help element strengthens Bradford Children and Families Trust Family Hubs by embedding a team of Substance Use Specialists. Their role is to help practitioners identify and respond earlier when parental substance use is emerging, minimised, or not fully understood.

This is a non-caseholding service. Instead, specialists work alongside Early Help staff through consultation, reflective practice, training, auditing, and modelling. The aim is to build workforce confidence and ensure consistent, high-quality responses to parental substance use across the system.

The Lead Practitioner is part of a four-person geographically dispersed team across family hubs. While delivering the same core functions as the other specialists, this post also takes on wider responsibility for service leadership.

Key aspects include:

• Supervision and coordination – providing day-to-day guidance and support to hub-based specialists, arranging cover, and ensuring consistent practice across all hubs.
• Operational oversight – acting as the main point of contact for the Early Help substance use strand, maintaining effective communication with Early Help leadership, and ensuring smooth day-to-day delivery.
• Service quality and compliance – ensuing compliance with data collection monitoring contractual requirements and working with the Service Manager and Head of Quality & Practice leadership – ensuring the new substance use screening element of the Early Help Assessment Tool is applied consistently in practice, embedding the Practitioner Toolkit with Early Help colleagues, and modelling trauma-informed, relational approaches with substance involved families.

The role combines hands-on practice with visible leadership, ensuring that the service runs effectively and that Early Help practitioners across the district receive consistent, high-quality support in recognising and responding to parental substance use.

If you would thrive working as part of our dedicated staff team, we’d love to hear from you.

In return, as well as a rewarding career, we can offer a competitive salary, 4% pension contribution, generous annual leave entitlement, an L&D programme, employee assistance scheme, life insurance, a monthly team wellbeing session and a programme of mindfulness activities for staff.  The Bridge Project is a Mindful Employer.

If you would like further information about the role, please contact Tracey Hogan, Director of Operations on tracey.hogen@thebridgeproject.org.uk to arrange this.

You must complete the Bridge Project’s application form in order to be considered for the role.  The application form plays a key part in our recruitment and selection process.  We use the information you provide about your skills, experience, career and education history to decide whether or not to invite you for an interview.  It is important that you complete the application form as fully and accurately as possible, ensuring that you give specific examples which demonstrate how you meet the criteria.

No CV’s are accepted.  No Employment Agencies please.

Closing Date:  9.00 am Monday 29 September 2025

Shortlisting Date:  Monday 29 September 2025

Interview Date:  Shortlisted candidates must be available to attend an interview on Thursday 2 October.  Candidates will be contacted by telephone on 29 September.