Director of Safeguarding and Risk

What We’re Looking For

As the Director of Safeguarding and Risk, you will be responsible for leading the safeguarding strategy for Kooth Behavioral Health services in the US and assisting the Global Head of Safeguarding with Kooth’s global trust and safety framework. You will be accountable for ensuring that the Kooth offer is safe and aligned with regulatory frameworks, both locally and nationally, and that policies and procedures are fully embedded with appropriate assurances in place for internal and external stakeholders. You will play a crucial role in ensuring the satisfaction, engagement, and overall success of our users. You will work closely with cross-functional teams and local and national healthcare systems to promote our behavioral health platform and drive positive outcomes and engagement.

How You’ll Make an Impact

Management & Leadership

• Responsible for the overall leadership and management of the Safeguarding and Trust & Safety functions and frameworks across North America.
• Assists and deputizes for the Global Head of Safeguarding within agreed designated areas of responsibility.
• Works closely with the VP of Clinical Excellence in setting the strategy for the US Clinical & Safeguarding Department, in line with the wider global clinical and safeguarding function and organizational priorities.
• Leads and builds a high-performing risk team and ensures they are delivering key strategic objectives.
• Ensures that US practices are aligned with the wider Kooth global frameworks.
• Sets a tone of compassionate leadership, providing supportive, challenging, and demanding high standards in line with business expectations.
• Supports the HR function in confidential matters that may result from performance issues, including leading investigations.
• Ensures that all team members are appropriately trained and supported to lead on designated areas of responsibility within the risk functions.

Analytics, Reporting & Insights

• Prepares monthly reports to demonstrate function activity, trends, and challenges, including improvement plans.
• Supports the Global Head of Safeguarding in ensuring that any safeguarding-specific risks within the organization are visible to the executive team and board of directors.
• Uses data from a variety of sources to produce narratives explaining how risk is increased and mitigated. This includes both quantitative and qualitative data from internal and external sources.
• Leads the incident reporting framework relating to practice, including investigations, root cause analysis, and reporting of lessons learned, as appropriate.

Stakeholder Management

• Engages, influences, and partners across the organization, as well as externally, to ensure a clear understanding of the responsibilities of the risk team.
• Represents the company at industry conferences and meetings, building relationships with key stakeholders while using expertise and experience to demonstrate the company’s commitment to ensuring safety for vulnerable service users.
• Ensures that risk policies are developed in conjunction with relevant local stakeholders, as required, and that any challenges to implementation are appropriately managed through transparent and supportive conversations, leading to mutual resolution.
• Responsible for the timely and accurate provision of relevant risk activity to local commissioners and stakeholders in line with contract compliance requirements.
• Leads the provision of timely responses to data requests from local and national stakeholders, as appropriate (including police), in line with duty of care.

Behavioral Health

• Remains up to date with relevant evidence-based practices in the behavioral health domain, generally and within digital health specifically.
• Ensures that clinical policies and procedures are fit for purpose and aligned with regulatory and best practice frameworks regarding any risk elements.
• Ensures an appropriate level of governance for relevant teams where there is a risk element, including product, content, and service delivery (including auditing, as appropriate).
• Supports the Risk Team Specialists in conducting practice audits, as appropriate to the role, as part of the overall governance function.

Risk Management

• Ensures the appropriate application of relevant risk legislation across the organization, working closely with the legal and risk team to identify and address any gaps.
• Leads the risk team in establishing, embedding, and reviewing risk processes, including risk management, risk reporting, and risk prevention.
• Analyzes organizational needs in relation to risk training and makes recommendations based on this analysis and other relevant data.
• Offers specialist advice to internal staff as the company expert on risks and their applicability within youth behavioral health (including vulnerable adults).
• Leads the implementation of actions to mitigate identified risks.
• Oversees the development of all policies relating to risk and leads the implementation of those policies.
• Leads the on-call provision, ensuring that practitioners are adequately supported in dealing with risks, which may include being part of the on-call rotation.
• Leads the implementation of lessons learned actions following risk incidents.

What You’ll Bring

• Master’s degree or higher in Psychology, Social Work, Medicine, Mental Health, Counseling, or a closely related field.
• 7+ years of experience managing risk in a relevant field, with demonstrated knowledge of regulatory frameworks and challenges related to youth behavioral health.
• Clinical license in a relevant field.
• Demonstrated experience leading safety and safeguarding initiatives within digital healthcare or behavioral health environments.
• Proven people management experience, including leading, developing, and supporting high-performing teams.
• Experience developing, implementing, and managing organizational strategies related to safeguarding, clinical safety, and risk management.
• Strong understanding of online trust and safety frameworks, including content moderation, user protection, and digital platform safety.
• Working knowledge of HIPAA regulations and healthcare privacy and compliance requirements.
• Comprehensive understanding of child and adult protection laws, safeguarding regulations, and applicable state and federal regulatory frameworks.
• Experience conducting compliance risk assessments, identifying potential vulnerabilities, and implementing effective risk mitigation strategies.
• Demonstrated experience managing clinical and patient safety protocols, incident response frameworks, investigations, and corrective actions.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to assess complex risks and make sound, evidence-based decisions.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate with cross-functional teams and senior leadership.
• Proven ability to navigate sensitive situations with sound judgment, discretion, empathy, and professionalism.
• Strong strategic thinking, organizational skills, and the ability to balance competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.