Support Care Worker

Amberleigh Care is a privately owned, specialist therapeutic child care and education service. We are not the same as other residential child care settings in that we have a very defined profile of young people - we do one thing - and we are experts in that field. This means that we do not offer emergency placements, we have very carefully matched and long-term stable placements. Our working model informs the way staff and trained and supported and our multidisciplinary teams are diverse in age, gender, experiences and backgrounds. It works - for children, for staff and for placing local authorities.

**This role is based in Redhill, Telford**

**Responsibilities**:

- In essence you will be part of a team of carers (divided into sub teams) and working on a rolling rota to provide ongoing care and support to the young people.
- The ‘shift’ has a Team Leader and/or Senior leading and coordinating and then a team of therapeutic carers - typically 6-7 adults working together evenings and weekends, more around during office and school hours
- Safeguarding and managing boundaries is a key part of the role - but we do this with very open communication and active use of relationships - we have very low levels of incidents, safeguarding referrals or more extreme challenging behaviours.
- The role is varied from hour to hour, day to day - on one level it is about (re)parenting the boys - so everything from well-being, role modelling, guide, mentor, nurture, firm boundaries, listening, playing, helping with homework, cooking, gardening, gaming, bikes, walks and activities, bedtime stories and settling, the list is endless
- As the role is varied, we need a variety of people on the team, people with different skills and talents, but also open to trying new things
- We have our own school on site and our own therapy team - so part of the role is about integrating with that wider team - the whole service operates as a ‘therapeutic community’ and so we have a lot of spaces for staff to reflect on their work in teams and together with the boys.
- This is work based on the relationships between everyone - boys, staff, up, down and sideways - we place a lot of support on helping staff develop their own self-awareness in relationship to others.

**Requirements**:

- We are interested to hear from people with a wider range of experiences and backgrounds
- If you have previous experience of residential childcare, great - we will help you learn about our practice model and approach. This work has some overlaps but is different to the work you have done before.
- If you are considering a new career with us, great - we can provide you with all the training to bring you into this exciting and varied sector and then build a career path from there
- We require good basic English and IT communication skills - we work in the 21st century and with teenagers, so we don’t need to be experts, but we need to have the basics
- You need to be over 21 years of age - but there is no upper limit.
- You need to hold a full driving licence (essential)
- A sense of humour, life skills, broad interests, liking young people, resilience, creativity, problem solving etc - the boys need a variety of role models around them.

**Reward**:

- We offer some of the **highest hourly rates of pay** in our sector and because of our working model (with Waking Night roles) our staff are **not required to ‘sleep in’**. We think this is important for work life balance
- The Directors who ‘own’ the service, all work in it full time across both sites - so there is **very visible, accessible and involved leadership**:

- There are **very extensive career development opportunities** - access to QCF 3 as standard, degree qualifications for those that want this (we know this isn’t everyones’ cup of tea) but a very wide range of in house and external training and events.
- As specialist practice settings, we are part of several rich networks that allow **our staff to get out and about and visit other services**:

- We provide **all the usual benefits and perks** - contributory pension, annual leave that builds with service, employee assistance scheme, loyalty and recruitment bonuses.
- This is a **values based service,** doing specialist work that really makes successful difference to the lives of the young people.

**Job Types**: Full-time, Part-time, Permanent
Part-time hours: 24-40 per week

**Salary**: £22,932.00-£24,474.00 per year

**Benefits**:

- Casual dress
- Company pension
- Cycle to work scheme
- Discounted or free food
- Life insurance
- On-site parking
- Sick pay

Schedule:

- Day shift

COVID-19 considerations:
Regular use of hand sanitiser

Ability to commute/relocate:

- Telford TF2 9NZ: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)

Application question(s):

- Are you over 21 years of age (due to the nature of the work we do)

**Experience**:

- Residential Childcare: 1 year (preferred)

**Language**:

- E