Head of Professional Practice at Børnehus

Do you want to lead the professional development and help create a good childhood?

We are looking for a professional leader for House 2 at the Children and Youth Houses Udby – Special Center Southern Denmark, Region of Southern Denmark

Do you have a strong social-pedagogical professionalism and a passion for turning pedagogical knowledge into practice? Can you create professional direction, engage your colleagues and support a joint pedagogical effort around children and young people with complex difficulties?

If so, you may be the person we are looking for as our new professional leader.

At the Children and Youth Houses Udby we work to create a good childhood for children and young people who need a specially adapted pedagogical effort. We believe that development is created through safe relationships, recognizable frameworks and a targeted environmental-therapeutic approach, where everyday small and large situations hold opportunities for learning and development.

About us

The Children and Youth Houses Udby is a specialized 24-hour facility under Special Center Southern Denmark in the Region of Southern Denmark. We are approved for 20 children and young people aged 6-20 years with complex social, emotional, cognitive and psychiatric difficulties.

We are organized into House 1 and House 2, where House 2 houses the youngest, who in various ways have a need for extensive adult support, clear structure and predictability.

Our professional foundation is environmental therapy based on neuro-affective developmental psychology. We are focused on understanding each child’s prerequisites, resources and difficulties and planning the pedagogical effort based on the child’s individual needs.

We have high professional ambitions and work methodically to develop a shared, systematic and reflective pedagogical practice. We want a culture where professional curiosity, reflection and shared responsibility are the driving forces in our work, and where the understanding of the child is translated into concrete actions in everyday life.

About the position in House 2.

As the professional leader you will play a central role in supporting, coordinating and developing the pedagogical effort.

You will be part of the department’s daily management and work closely with the department head, who has the overall management and personnel responsibility. You do not have formal personal responsibility, but you will have a clear professional leadership mandate and responsibility to create direction, coherence and progress in the professional work.

A key part of your task will be to create coherence between our professional foundation, the individual pedagogical interventions and the practice the children encounter in everyday life.

Your central tasks will be to

• Set professional direction and develop common practice , so that our environmental-therapeutic and neuro-affective understanding framework translates into a coherent pedagogical effort around the individual child.
• Support daily pedagogical practice through professional sparring, guidance and concrete help with pedagogical issues, documentation and the preparation of statements.
• Lead and facilitate the professional collaboration spaces , including team meetings and professional discussions, with a focus on reflection, joint decisions, clear task distribution and systematic follow-up.
• Ensure quality and coherence in the individual efforts , including work with around-the-clock structures, pedagogical sub-goals, risk profiles and ongoing evaluation.
• Carry out the primary professional collaboration with municipalities and other partners , including schools and other relevant actors.
• Support professional learning and competence development , where experiences, documentation and professional reflection are used to continuously improve our practice.

You must be able to work with both the overarching professional lines and the concrete task solutions. You should be able to create an overview, take responsibility for the professional processes and contribute to the staff team succeeding in the task together.

Who are you?

We imagine that you are a trained pedagog and have solid experience from the specialized social-pedagogical field, preferably with children and young people with complex support and treatment needs.

You do not necessarily need experience from a formal leadership position. The most important is that you have professional depth, organizational understanding and the desire and ability to take responsibility for leading others in the professional work. It would be an advantage if you have experience from a professional coordinator role or similar.

We particularly value that you

• Have a strong social-pedagogical foundation and preferably familiarity with environmental therapy and neuro-affective developmental psychology in an placement setting.
• Have professional impact and the ability to translate knowledge and reflection into a shared pedagogical practice.
• Have experience with systematic pedagogical work, including case-systematics, goal setting, documentation and professional evaluation.
• Are clear and trust-building and can lead professional processes, create reflection and follower-ship around joint decisions.
• Have strong written and oral communication skills and can prepare professionally well-founded assessments and statements.
• Have good collaboration skills and can build constructive relationships both internally in the organization and externally with municipalities, authorities and other partners.

As a person you are curious, engaged and persistent. You have the courage to take professional responsibility, even when the task is difficult, and you can handle different perspectives and professional disagreements constructively.

You know that professional leadership is about both setting direction and getting others with you. Therefore you are focused on creating a culture where employees feel professionally supported, involved and still committed to the shared task.

What do we offer?

We offer a professional leadership position with real influence on the development of the pedagogical practice in a specialized 24-hour facility.

You will become part of a workplace with an important societal mission, where employees every day work to create safety, well-being and development opportunities for children with special needs.

You will have close cooperation with the department head and an engaged staff group with different experiences and competencies. You will also have substantial collaboration with House 1 and the center’s consultants with opportunities for professional sparring, quality assurance and development.

There will be opportunities for competence development, including through the Southern Denmark Improvement Model.

We are a workplace in development, and we do not hide that the task is sometimes demanding. In return, you will have the opportunity to make a noticeable difference – for the children, the staff and the overall professional quality.

Do you want to be a part of it?

If you can see yourself in a role where professional leadership, practice-oriented sparring and development of shared professionalism go hand in hand, we would very much like to hear from you.

Practical information

• Workplace: The Children and Youth Houses Udby, Limosegyden 6, 5580 Nr. Aaby.
• Working hours: 37 hours per week.
• Driving license: For a standard car.
• Start date: 1 February 2027.
• Salary and terms of employment: According to the applicable collective agreement and the principles of local salary formation. 32381 Social Pedagogical Personnel (edited)

Region of Southern Denmark provides starting salary, centrally set allowances and pension. Individual allowances are also negotiated depending on experience and qualifications.

Starting salary for positions in Region of Southern Denmark

Region of Southern Denmark is a smoke-free workplace.

Curious for more?

You are very welcome to contact department head Morten Nielsen at tel. 40 41 33 64 every weekday between 8.00 and 16.00.

How to apply

Send your application and CV no later than Tuesday, 1 December 2026 at 23:59 .

Expect to conduct interviews on Friday, 4 December 2026 .

In the interview you will have to solve a case, which will be handed out before the interview. You will have 30 minutes to prepare.