Support Worker

**Job Title**:Support Worker

**Job Location**:Dawlish

**Salary**:Between £24,960 £26,000 based on 40 hours per week, and £1,896 based on 4 monthly sleep-ins. The total package average is between £26,856 and £27,896.

**Contract Type**:Permanent

Everyone deserves access to an education. For some learners, that may mean spending time living away from home. That’s where you come in. Some learners at Oakwood College in Dawlish may have family living further away than a daily commute would allow. Due to the specialist nature of the college, we provide separate residential services to students to make attending easier.

As a support worker, you’ll spend time with young adults before and after college. If you’re working in the afternoon, your shift will start at 2:30pm - Just in time for them to come home. You’ll spend time with them doing recreational activities, support them to further their independence in daily living skills, such as shopping, cooking, and home maintenance, and be there as a strong shoulder of emotional support. This will keep you busy until your shift ends at 10pm. You may go home at this point, or you could have a “Sleep-in,” meaning you sleep at the home and make everyone is ready for college in the morning. Weekend and non-term-time shifts are longer, as many young adults we support stay with us 7 days per week.

Not all days are the same. Due to the needs of the young adults, they may have challenging days and will need support to navigate these. You’ll be supporting people with Autism, ADHD, and other learning difficulties who may have experienced trauma in their lives; this means that some of them may require higher levels of personal care or more emotional, social, or communication support. Don’t worry—you’ll get all the training you need to help them live their best lives.

**A day in the life of a Support Worker will involve**:

- Supporting adults to have the best quality of life possible, whether through helping them with shopping and cooking, personal care, budgeting, making sure they’ve taken any needed medication, or simply being there for the happy and emotional times.
- Liaising with wider teams internally and externally to ensure the care provided is right for the individual.
- Advocating with and for people so that their wishes and values are taken into account in all areas of their lives.
- Administration. We’ll need you to keep our records up to date so that we can evidence progress and ensure the individuals receive the appropriate levels of support.

**To be a successful Support Worker, you’ll need**:

- Patience, compassion, and resilience - The individuals you support may have experienced trauma, which may have an impact on their communication or lead to behaviour that could be seen as challenging.
- Great communication skills - Both verbal and non-verbal communication is important in this role as you’ll be speaking to a lot of different people at different times and need to be able to adapt and update support records.
- A driving licence - The adults enjoy spending time out of their homes. We need you to be able to drive them to where they need to go. We have the cars; you just need the licence.
- To be flexible - You’ll need to be able to sleep at the home during your shifts. The people we support 24 hours a day. This does mean you’ll be able to work your full week in 3-4 days

**In return for your time, you’ll get**:

- ** Holidays -** You’ll get 28 days annual leave. You’ll still need to work on bank holidays if the rota requires. You’ll also get an extra day off for your birthday after your first year with us.
- ** Pension scheme**- Our pension scheme is based on you paying in 5%, and us adding 3%.
- ** Learning & Development Opportunities** - We provide comprehensive learning opportunities for team members to develop themselves.
- ** Discounts **- You’ll have access to brilliant discounts through the Blue Light Card and our own employee benefits platform.
- ** Wellbeing Support** - Your wellbeing is always our priority. You’ll have access to mental health and wellbeing support. On top of this, our therapies team offers a monthly confidential check in clinic, and group reflective practice sessions.
- ** Cycle2Work **-The cycle to work scheme enables you to buy a bicycle at a discounted rate.
- ** DBS **- As this role requires you to have an enhanced DBS carried out, we will cover this cost.

After 12 months service you’ll also be eligible for our Medicash scheme which covers a wide range of medical, health and wellbeing expenses (Including immediate access to a GP). You’ll also get critical illness paid at x1 your annual salary and life insurance paid at x2 your annual salary, to support your next of kin through the difficult times
- At Phoenix Learning and Care, we pride ourselves on our diverse workforce, and ensuring we have an inclusive environment for all our team members. We remain committed to ensuri