Head of Student Well-being at Valenture Institute

Description

Valenture Institute is committed to liberating the potential of every learner. The Head of Student Well-being is dedicated to creating an inclusive and holistic learning environment for all of our students. The safety, welfare and happiness of every student is the top priority of the Head of Student Well-being. The Head of Student Well-being oversee’s three support functions, namely, Academic and Therapeutic learner support, career services and co-curricular activities.

Academic and Therapeutic support

• Initiate, develop and implement pastoral care initiatives that promote a holistic skill set within the student population that are developmentally appropriate.

• Accountable for the the set up and execution of the counselling and academic support structure

• Oversee child protection, safeguarding, welfare and safety issues, including external referrals and safeguarding training for new and existing staff

• Work with the Office of the Registrar and Talent Management teams to ensure all school staff meet child protection legislation requirements

• Train mentors and faculty in their role as mandated reports of suspected child abuse and neglect

• Act as school liaison with Child Care Service Organizations

• Provide support, advice and guidance to staff with regards to behaviour management strategies

• Work collaboratively with Counsellors and support staff to provide specialist care for all students

• Provide supervision to all Support Coaches, Mentors and support staff

• Play an integral role in defining, supporting and continuously refining the Response to Intervention (RtI) process

• Partner with tutoring and facilitator providers and/or platforms to provide tutoring and facilitation services at scale

• Investigate therapeutic providers (i.e eap) to provide therapeutic support at scale to our students and staff

• Accountable for accommodations across our high school offerings

Career services

• Provide direction and leadership for Career Services across our high school offerings

• Accountable for the development and rollout of career services across our high school offerings

• Collaborate with the Career Services Manager to develop and manage the learner career services offering

Co-curricular activities

• Provide direction and leadership for extra curriculars across our high school offerings

• Accountable for the development and rollout of co-curricular activities across our high school offerings

• Collaborate with the co-curricular manager to develop virtual clubs, extra curricular, leadership opportunities and and experiences

Team leadership

• Provide direction and leadership to direct reports

• Focus on the overall health and wellness of the team through coaching and development plans.

• Provide professional development and 1:1 support

• Actively shape the culture of the team to provide high-quality education and pastoral care at scale.

• Recruit and retain exceptional academic and support staff

• Support on process development and improvement, remove operational blockers and ensure that support staff are enabled to provide efficient and effective support to students.

• Develop an internship and/or learnership programme for long term scale of support services (counselling, academics, careers etc)

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work, Counselling, Psychology or Education

• 5+ years’ experience in a Pastoral Care role

• Experience working with secondary students would be advantageous.

• Excellent communication and organizational skills.

• Ability to efficiently balance both administrative and support services.

• Integrity and professionalism.

• Advocacy skills.

• Ability to respond effectively to the needs of a diverse student pool.

• Working knowledge of various counseling models, practices and resources.

• Ability to collect and analyse data.

• Sound judgement and emotional intelligence.

• Operationally savvy.