U-start seeks team leader

U-start is the Hvidovre municipality's school absence team and we hope to get a skilled, creative and engaged team leader to join the team. If you are passionate about leading a team that works with school communities, vulnerable children and their families, get excited about hands-on and development-supportive change work and simply can't help thinking that developing new and creative interventions as well as cross-disciplinary collaboration is exciting, then you should read on.

U-start is a cross-disciplinary team with dedicated people who work closely with the municipality's 9 public schools to create movement and development in particularly stuck and complex cases, where children and young people have problematic school absence. The team consists of 8 colleagues anchored in different professional backgrounds and municipal centers (including social worker, psychologist, contact person, PPR-psychologist, family therapist) and a team leader (you) who work together on the cases.

We are looking for you as our team leader if you have experience in leadership and/or school absence work and think it could be exciting to lead in ensuring high quality in our task solving and support a warm, safe and validating team culture, where we must dare to engage in each other's work.

In the team, cooperation, creativity and high professionalism are central values. We are focused on "what works" and we adjust adaptively and continuously the interventions accordingly and work into all the many life contexts and communities that make up the child's life.

The team's work is inspired by and developed on the basis of systemic and narrative core principles as well as AMBIT (Adaptive Mentalization-based Integrative Treatment) as a framing concept for work with vulnerable children with complex problems, large networks and sometimes low motivation for help. The interventions often include elements of both family treatment, pedagogical interventions with children, classroom interventions and sparring and development with teacher teams.

The tailored solutions are found through dialogue with the families and their professional network.

For us it is essential that you are passionate about working with children and young people and that we as a team succeed in our work and are supported in standing in work that can at times challenge us emotionally.

You should thrive in complexity and a sometimes busy workday with varying tasks that reach into many different contexts and positions. It requires that you are strongly anchored in your own professional field and at the same time curious about others - so you must enjoy working independently and pulling together as a team. You should have the desire and courage to be creative and innovative, and at the same time maintain overview and calm when there are challenges and obstacles on the way.

You should have a flair for organizational analysis and consultative process-facilitation skills. You should be ambitious and friendly as well as good at communicating – not least what you need help with.

With us you get

• A workplace dedicated to creating and delivering effective interventions for children, families and schools.
• A team where high professionalism and collegial support and collaboration are central values. A team where professional boundaries fill very little and focus on the case a lot.
• Opportunity to make a difference for vulnerable children and families
• Great influence on your task solving
• Good supervision and educational opportunities

You will be employed at Poppelgården Family Center with the primary task as team leader in U-start. Poppelgården Family Center is Hvidovre municipality's family treatment offer. There are 30 dedicated men and women who value their workplace community, filled with professional development, knowledge sharing, high spirits and a strong commitment to making a difference for children and families in vulnerable positions.

You will become part of a leadership team of 5, who work to create development and coherence across the center and the municipality for both children and families and ourselves.

The application deadline is October 18, 2026. We conduct hiring interviews on October 22, 2026 Poppelgården Family Center, Byvej 98, 2650 Hvidovre. The position is 37 hours and is to be filled on November 1, 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter.

If you want to know more about the position or have further questions, you are welcome to contact the head of Poppelgården Anna Blicher-Hansen at 2213 1856 or Ustart team member Pernille Solhøj Næstrup at 2283 3790. You can also read about Poppelgården Family Center at Poppelgaarden.hvidovre.dk