Area Partnership Manager (North East)

Purpose

As a core member of our regional hub team, you'll be the on-the-ground catalyst for empowering and developing debt centres and coaching services (Job Club, Life Skills and Money Coaching) within your designated sub-region. You'll serve as the primary regional contact, providing vital support and driving excellence in services.

Your key focus will be to inspire, equip, and challenge frontline workers and church leaders, enabling them to effectively address financial vulnerability and crisis within their communities. You'll build and nurture strong relationships with church leaders and debt coaches, ensuring high-quality service delivery and impactful outcomes. You will build and develop strong local networks connecting centres and services together in specific regional settings.

Passion

Area Partnership Managers will be passionate about developing our relationship with churches and frontline workers to offer life transforming CAP services to local communities across the UK, whilst giving clients the opportunity to hear and respond to the love of Jesus.

Person

Area Partnership Managers report to Region Directors and National Leaders. This role sits within the Service Deliver directorate.

This role doesn’t have any CAP staff reporting directly to it. However, this role is responsible for engaging frontline workers and church leaders in churches, using influence and persuasion rather than position power. 

Area Partnership Manager Scope

• Almost all AMs are part-time (2.5-4 days per week)
• Significant amount of travel, Most have centres >1.5hrs away, but others have centres 2+hrs in multiple directions. Most cover multiple (3-4) counties

Role

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Partnership: Collaborate closely with the Partnership Development Manager to identify and cultivate opportunities for service expansion through existing and new church partnerships.
• Relationship Management: Build and maintain strong, effective relationships with church leaders and debt coaches, fostering a collaborative and supportive environment.
• Frontline Support & Development - Debt Centres: Provide direct support and development to debt centres  ensuring they are equipped to meet the needs of their communities.
• Frontline Support & Development - Coaching products: Build connections and networks for coaching services directing them to the central Service Support Hub for detailed expertise and practical support. Take a flexible and appropriate approach to visiting and supporting Coaching Service Managers, their courses and the partner churches.
• Innovation and Process Enhancements: Have a continual improvement mindset that looks to introduce innovation and enhancements across all CAP’s products and services.
• Data-Driven Problem Solving: Work with regional team managers to leverage data and real-time insights to identify and address challenges faced by debt coaches and clients.
• Cross-Regional Collaboration: Partner with other Area Partnership Managers across the region to deliver impactful training, events, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Service & Coaching Support Liaison: Work closely with the Service Support and Coaching Support functions contributing to and advising on expert coaching panels. 

Key Accountabilities

Service Expansion

• To provide local insight to the Partnership Development Team and support as necessary (for the purpose of opening new services) 
• To identify opportunities for additional services within the Area Partnership Manager’s network of partner churches. (The level and depth of involvement will vary, but can be all the way to gaining verbal agreement, before handing over to a Partnership Development Manager)

Church Relationship

• To be the point of contact for centres when there are national CAP announcements/ implementations of change; handling these with professionalism and grace
• To build & foster an active and collaborative relationship with church leaders (especially during times of change), ensuring CAP services are delivered in a way that serves the church(s) mission
• To contextualise CAP’s vision with the local church
• To speak on behalf of churches into CAP service leaders (e.g. consolidating feedback on service quality/ changes)
• To raise performance/ behaviour issues with the church leader when necessary and agree improvement plans

Centre Effectiveness - Debt Centres

• To inspire, encourage, motivate and challenge Centre Managers and Debt Coaches to deliver their service with excellence (e.g. bookings/ members, impact, Evangelism & Discipleship, publicity, befrienders, prayer team etc)
• To be the main source of expertise for Centre Managers with regards to all issues of running a CAP Debt centre. They are the first port of call for church partners.
• To undertake regular reviews and establish Service Development Plans with each Debt Centre Manager and Church Line Manager/church Leader to ensure each service serves its clients well & is achieving the mission goals of the church(es)
• To ensure services are set up for sustainability (including challenging churches on funding, connection with church mission, succession planning, volunteer teams etc)
• To monitor debt centre  performance utilising the network dashboard and other CAP systems and Management Information & work with the Debt Centre Manager to create improvement plans
• To provide some aspects of pastoral support for Debt Centre Managers in their role 
• To advise Debt Centre Manager on how to handle difficult client situations.
• To carry out annual audits of centres
• In conjunction with the Region Director/National Leader & church partners agree when/ if a service needs to close on a temporary/ permanent basis
• To negotiate changes to contributions (with the approval/ direction of the Region Director/National Leader)

Centre Effectiveness - Coaching Services

• To connect and build strong local networks in order that Coaching Services are well connected into the CAP family.
• To signpost and direct Coaching Service Managers to either the Service Support Hub, or expert local Coaching Services to enable them to get expert help and guidance in running a Coaching Service.
• To take a flexible and appropriate approach to visiting Coaching Service Managers and their courses. In this flexibility the Area Partnership Manager will be steered and motivated by what most helps service the church. It also recognises that one size doesn’t fit all.

Region

• To gather and share best practice across the network. This will involve feeding back innovation to Service Support Hub, Regional Debt Help Hub and Product Development teams.
• To participate in recruiting frontline Debt Centre workers.
• To host, create content and organise Area “Revive” days, Area clusters & hubs  for the frontline. (This includes identifying the development needs of the frontline and responding to this accordingly)
• To provide Area specific updates to the Region Director/National Leader 

Frontline Training

• To deliver and support online & in person training of frontline workers and follow this up with focused support to achieve operational competence and confidence. In particular, this will require significant support in the first year of a new Debt Centres to ensure it is set up well and sustainable. 
• To support Debt Centre Coaches and Managers through their Core Competency Framework sign off procedure, including taking coaches through run-throughs
• To work collaboratively with the Regional Team to design and deliver excellent equipping and inspiring events for the frontline. 

External Representation

• To represent CAP in their area, as required. (e.g. speaking at church events in the area to inspire other local churches to consider partnering with CAP, speaking to referral agencies, diocese, local media etc)
• Represent CAP on local external bodies (e.g. a city wide multi-agency body addressing poverty)

CAP Processes and Teams

• To work closely with Regional Team Managers as part of a Regional Hub to provide excellent Debt Help services to partner churches and clients. This will involve using data, tools and real time insights to problem solve for debt coaches and clients
• To work closely with Service Support Hub and Coaching Support functions to provide excellent Coaching Services to partner churches and clients.
• To drive a culture of unity and problem solving between Service Support Hub and Regional Debt Hub functions and churches.
• To participate in CAP improvement projects as necessary. (This could involve leading/participating in a small cross-functional team within CAP to improve a process. It could also include supporting a significant change program over an extended period, as a subject matter expert)
• Drive engagement with impact reporting within services to aid charity income generation efforts within the Mission and Movement directorate.
• Support national CAP fundraising, PR, External Affairs and Money Coaching events held in the Area
• To update CAP systems with changes to centre data