Location / hours / working pattern
Full time, with an expectation of up to two days per week in a West Dunbartonshire office base. Some travel to the northeast of England expected, plus occcasional travel to London and other parts of the UK. 

Thrive at Five’s mission is to bring together local communities, families and partners, and to join-up and strengthen early years systems to support children to thrive from pregnancy to five.  We bring additional capacity, coordination and expertise into local early years systems, helping to build trust, strengthen community connections and ensure families have the knowledge, confidence and support they need so that children can thrive.  The organisation has grown considerably in recent years, with programmes running in Stoke-on-Trent, Redcar & Cleveland, Middlesbrough and West Dunbartonshire. We now employ over 40 people across the UK. We are at an exciting moment as we expand our brilliant team, helping to deliver sustained improvements in children’s developmental outcomes in each of the communities we work with and for.  The post-holder will form a critical part of our new team in Scotland, leading data and insights work to shape the direction of our programme(s) and ensuring that robust evaluation plans are in place to assess impact.   The post-holder will primarily work with the new multi-disciplinary early years team in West Dunbartonshire, as well as supporting with learning and evaluation activity relating to our work in the northeast of England. You will benefit from working closely with experienced colleagues in the central Learning and Impact team who are based in the south of England and can offer peer support and professional development opportunities. 

Job purpose (overview)

| Thrive at Five’s Senior Evaluation and Research Manager will be responsible for supporting the incoming backbone team in West Dunbartonshire and local stakeholders to reflect on and apply the insights from our recent discovery phase.   Reporting to the Scotland Director, the aim will be to ensure that both colleagues and our partners across the local early years system have a clear, shared understanding of local opportunities and challenges based on robust quantitative and qualitative analysis.  As our new local programme in West Dunbartonshire gets underway, the Senior Evaluation and Research Manager will also play a key role in the development of new workstreams and embedding a test, learn, and refine cycle throughout the work. The post-holder will help us ensure our external evaluation has the access to data and local contacts needed to produce regular, high-quality outputs.  This is a key role for Thrive at Five that will help us grow the charity in Scotland and ensure our work is strongly informed by evidence, data and context. That includes supporting the development of additional sites in future.  The postholder will also support broader learning and evaluation activity in our sites in the northeast of England. 

Role description - what the post holder will do

Support the incoming backbone team and wider local stakeholders to reflect on and apply the findings from our discovery process in West Dunbartonshire.  As programme development in West Dunbartonshire gets underway, design and deliver a schedule of workstream formative evaluations so that the various strands of local delivery have a clearly articulated purpose, a plausible theory of action, and a strong focus on learning and improving.

· Work alongside the Thrive at Five Central and local backbone team, and local stakeholders, to help develop and define shared workstreams.

· Carry out a cycle of formative evaluations on local shared workstreams and ensure key learnings are disseminated to those involved in the work and incorporated into future delivery.  Ensure the independent Thrive at Five evaluation is delivering timely and high-quality outputs in Scotland and that the learnings are strengthening our work.

· Feed into discussions about the Scottish Thrive at Five impact indicators and the associated impact evaluation.
· Work with the independent evaluation team to ensure they have the required on-the ground delivery capability and access to data to effectively conduct the evaluation.
· Quality assure evaluation products.  Provide general evaluation, data, and research support to the Scotland Director. · Support with research and analysis around the selection of new Thrive at Five sites and/or local communities within local authority areas.
· Support with the preparation of Thrive at Five briefing materials, reports, powerpoint presentations, literature reviews.  Lead on defined learning and evaluation activities relating to workstreams in our local programmes in the northeast of England.  Work with stakeholders in these local programme to help define workstream scope, aims, learning questions etc. Undertaking formative learning and impact projects to support a process of continuous workstream improvement. 

Person specification. What postholder needs to have.

Essential
-  Relevant experience in learning, evaluation, and impact roles.
-  Proven track record of carrying out high-quality evaluation and learning work that supports the implementation of local services and/or projects.
-  Skills in quantitative data collection and analysis for the purposes of both assessing local need and strengthening delivery.
-  Skills in qualitative data analysis for the purposes of both assessing local need and strengthening delivery.
-  A track record of producing reports that are accessible to local practitioners and that help to drive practice improvement. -  Excellent written and oral communication skills.
-  Strong organisational and project management skills with an eye for detail.
-  Track record of innovation and creative solutions. -          Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to develop relationships with staff at all levels.
-  Experience of managing contractors and consultants.
-  High levels of empathy, passion, and care for children and families in our delivery areas.
-  Alignment with our organisation’s values. 
Desirable
- A strong understanding of early childhood development and early developmental inequalities.
-  A strong understanding of local early childhood systems and the evidence around what shapes children’s outcomes and what works to improve children’s outcomes.
-  A strong understanding of collective impact and place-based working, particularly in communities affected by poverty. -          Familiarity with the range of local and quantitative datasets that relate to early child development.
 -  A good grasp of using AI to support research and data analysis. 

Application process:
 Apply, please submit a CV and a 1-2 side covering statement.
 Closing date: 6th October 

 

Contact details for further information.
For more information, please contact Eleanor Passmore (Thrive at Five Scotland Director) at eleanor.passmore@thriveatfive.org.uk