Director, Educator & Family Services

About Us

About Our Opportunity

Primary Accountabilities

As the Director, Educator and Family Services, you will: 

• Provide strategic leadership and operational oversight for provincial educator and family services, including the Child Care Subsidy Program, family registry and child care waitlist, early childhood educator registry, educator classification, professional development validation, bursary and reimbursement programs, and related service channels.
• Establish priorities, service standards, performance measures, risk controls, and reporting mechanisms to support effective service delivery, client satisfaction, program integrity, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Lead and direct managers and staff responsible for day-to-day program operations, application processing, client support, issue resolution, quality assurance, service delivery, and program administration.
• Ensure staff have clear direction, tools, training, escalation pathways, and performance expectations to deliver responsive, accurate, respectful, and consistent services to families, educators, operators, and sector partners.
• Provide senior-level guidance and decision-making on complex, sensitive, or time-sensitive files where facts may be incomplete, expectations may conflict, and decisions may have financial, service, policy, privacy, equity, reputational, or political implications. 
• Ensure escalated inquiries from elected officials, senior officials, families, operators, educators, and the public are assessed, coordinated, and resolved in a timely, professional, and risk-informed manner, with appropriate escalation to senior leadership as required.
• Provide expert advice, briefing materials, decision-support documents, analysis, and recommendations to the Executive Director, Deputy Minister, Minister, senior leadership, and other government officials on program delivery issues, service pressures, emerging risks, policy gaps, operational impacts, and opportunities to improve access to early learning and child care. 
• Lead continuous improvement and modernization of educator and family service delivery, including improvements to business processes, digital tools, data quality, service channels, communications, operational policies, and client experience.
• Work collaboratively with departmental colleagues, technology partners, policy teams, program areas, and service delivery partners to ensure new or revised programs, processes, and systems are implementable, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of families, educators, operators, and staff.
• Monitor service volumes, trends, risks, backlogs, operational issues, and performance data, and use this information to strengthen service planning, accountability, decision-making, and continuous improvement. 
• Support workforce development and system planning by contributing operational insight into educator needs, training pathways, service pressures, access issues, digital service requirements, and client experience. 
• Promote a respectful, inclusive, service-oriented, and accountable work environment that supports staff, strengthens public trust, and contributes to a sustainable early learning and child care system. 

Qualifications and Experience

To be successful in this role, you have a bachelor’s degree in public administration, business administration, or another related field, plus several years of progressively responsible leadership experience in a public sector, education, early learning and child care, human services, regulatory, workforce development, or client-service environment. An equivalent combination of training and experience may be considered. 

You bring senior-level experience leading programs, services, or operational teams in a complex and changing system. You understand how to balance legislation, policy, program requirements, service delivery realities, financial accountability, privacy, equity, client experience, and public expectations. You are comfortable making decisions with incomplete information, managing competing priorities, and providing practical advice on sensitive or high-profile matters. 

You have experience leading managers and staff, setting strategic and operational priorities, managing workloads, supporting performance, strengthening accountability, and guiding teams through change. You can identify service risks or gaps, resolve complex issues, and develop practical solutions that improve consistency, timeliness, accuracy, transparency, and user experience. 

Other required qualifications

You also have experience: 

• Leading complex programs or services that involve application review, eligibility, assessment, classification, certification, validation, subsidy, bursary, reimbursement, registration, waitlist, or other structured decision-making processes. 
• Interpreting and applying legislation, regulations, policies, procedures, program criteria, service standards, privacy requirements, or fiscal parameters. 
• Providing strategic and operational advice to senior leaders, including briefing materials, decision notes, reports, correspondence, issue analysis, and recommendations. 
• Managing high-volume, visible, client-facing services that require strong service standards, quality assurance, performance monitoring, escalation processes, and risk controls. 
• Leading service delivery improvements, including business process redesign, digital service implementation, data quality improvements, workflow changes, service channel improvements, or client experience enhancements. 
• Working with internal and external partners to clarify requirements, resolve complex issues, coordinate service delivery, and support implementation of new or revised programs, policies, processes, or systems. 
• Using information, data, and service trends to monitor performance, identify risks, assess operational impacts, and support evidence-informed recommendations. 
• Communicating clearly and professionally with staff, senior leaders, elected officials’ offices, partners, stakeholders, service users, and the public, including when issues are sensitive, urgent, or complex. 
• Managing confidential and sensitive information with sound judgement, discretion, and respect for privacy and program integrity. 

You are a strategic and collaborative leader, strong communicator, and practical problem solver. You bring sound judgement, professionalism, adaptability, and a client-centred approach to your work. You can strengthen accountability while building positive relationships across a complex service system. 

Assets

The following would be considered assets but are not required: 

• Knowledge of Nova Scotia’s early learning and child care sector, including child care subsidy, child care access, family registry and waitlist services, educator classification, professional learning, bursary and reimbursement programs, and sector sustainability. 
• Experience leading services that support families, educators, child care operators, regulated service providers, or other public-facing client groups. 
• Experience with educator certification, classification, credential assessment, registration, licensing, subsidy, bursary, reimbursement, waitlist, or similar assessment-based services. 
• Experience leading modernization or digital service delivery initiatives, including online applications, registries, portals, case management systems, workflow tools, reporting platforms, or client-facing service channels. 
• Experience developing or monitoring service standards, performance indicators, dashboards, operational reports, risk controls, quality assurance processes, or continuous improvement plans. 
• Experience working with post-secondary institutions, training providers, professional learning organizations, sector partners, community organizations, service delivery partners, or regulated service providers. 
• Experience managing issues involving elected officials, senior officials, media or public attention, privacy, equity, financial accountability, or reputational risk. 
• Bilingualism in English and French. 

Equivalency

Benefits

Based on the employment status, the Government of Nova Scotia offers its employees a wide range of benefits such as a Defined Benefit Pension Plan, Health, Dental, Life Insurance, General illness, Short and Long Term Disability, Vacation and Employee and Family Assistance Programs.  For information on all our Benefit program offerings, click here: Benefits for government employees.

What We Offer

• Career development where you have access to career guidance, tools, resources, and ongoing training for every stage of your career
• Engaging workplace: our employees feel valued, respected, connected, and tuned in, we have forward-thinking policies and strategies
• Countless career paths
• A Dyanamic, client-focused office environment where service excellence and teamwork are our focus.