Unit Manager Early Intervention and Preventive Work

Haparanda kommun · Full-time

Haparanda, Sweden

Welcome to the Municipal Administration – where we shape the future of Haparanda! Our mission is to drive important issues within democracy, HR, communication, community and business development, and ecological and social sustainability. With us, you work on creating a dynamic and sustainable municipality where everyone can thrive and develop. We are now looking for engaged and visionary employees who want to participate in influencing and improving our municipality. Are you ready to take the next step in your career and contribute to creating a better future for Haparanda? Come and become part of our dedicated team! You are not being recruited to manage an existing operation – you are being recruited to build a new one. Haparanda Municipality is establishing a municipality-wide operation for early and preventive interventions for children, young people, and their families. The goal is to identify needs and risks early, strengthen coordination between different actors, and create better conditions for children and young people to receive the right support at the right time. We are looking for someone who wants to lead the establishment of the operation and translate the assignment into functioning work methods, collaboration, and results. This is an assignment for a confident and action-oriented leader who enjoys building something new, creating structure, and bringing different perspectives together. The Unit's Assignment The new unit shall work operatively and preventively with children and young people up to approximately 20 years of age and their families. The work takes place in close collaboration with, among others, schools, social services, leisure activities, police, regional authorities, and civil society. The unit shall, among other things, conduct outreach and relationship-building work, offer early and voluntary support measures, capture early signals and risks, and contribute to coordination when multiple actors need to be involved. The unit shall also contribute to the municipality's situational picture and crime prevention work and develop work methods based on needs and results. The unit shall complement the municipality's existing operations by working early, conducting outreach, and coordinating efforts. Together with employees and involved operations, you will develop how the assignment shall be carried out and how collaboration and responsibility shall function in practice. The operation shall not perform statutory authority functions or take over the responsibility of other operations. Your Work Tasks You are responsible for building the organization, developing work methods and collaboration forms, and creating structure for goals, quality, and follow-up. You are responsible for the operation, personnel, work environment, and budget and lead a team that is expected to eventually comprise approximately 5–7 employees. The operation will be built up successively with the goal of being fully established by 2027. The unit is organizationally placed under the Municipal Board and falls within the Municipal Director's area of responsibility. As unit manager, you report to the Municipal Director. The assignment is simultaneously municipality-wide and involves close collaboration with, among others, social services, children and education, leisure, and other involved operations. Through operational work, you will have an important role in identifying and analyzing needs, risks, and development trends among children and young people. You contribute to the municipality's overall situational picture and return knowledge and development needs to involved operations and municipal management. Your Profile We are looking for someone who has: - relevant post-secondary education or equivalent experience - documented management or leadership experience - qualified experience working with children and young people - experience with operations development, change management, or building new work methods - experience with collaboration between different operations, professions, or organizations - strong ability to work structurally with goals, results, and follow-up - strong ability to express yourself in Swedish, both orally and in writing It is meritorious if you have experience in preventive or crime prevention work, social work, school, youth or field work, and work in public and politically governed organizations. Knowledge of Finnish or Meänkieli is particularly valuable in Haparanda's multilingual environment. Your Leadership To succeed in the role, you need to combine development capacity and action-orientation with responsiveness and collaboration skills. You need to be able to provide direction and make decisions even when all solutions are not given, while building trust with employees, operations, and external collaboration partners. You are confident in building something new and creating structure in an operation under development. You can switch between a strategic holistic perspective and operational presence and find it easy to see connections between different perspectives and operations. You are also skilled at building relationships and creating collaboration across organizational boundaries. You can balance different interests without losing focus on the assignment and translate complex information into clear priorities and decisions. Great emphasis will be placed on your ability to build trust, drive development, and create structure and direction in an operation under development. What We Offer You have the opportunity to shape a new municipality-wide operation from the ground up with close ties to municipal management. Here you can combine leadership, operations development, and an important societal assignment – with great opportunities to influence how Haparanda works preventively for children and young people. Haparanda is a small municipality with short decision-making paths and close relationships between operations and municipal management. This provides good opportunities to implement ideas in practice and create real change.