Residential Support Worker

**Job description (Residential children's Support Worker)**

**About us**

**Salary & Benefits**:
£12.00ph unqualified / £12.50 qualified

£55.00 per night sleep in allowance.

Paid DBS Certificate checks.

QCF LEVEL 4 Health & Social care (Qualifying period / probation period successfully completed)

Company Pension Scheme.

Induction and training is also provided

Standard annual Leave entitlement + Bank Holidays

**About the role**

The duties of a childcare worker typically include caring for children's physical and emotional needs as well as supporting their education and teaching them new skills. Depending on the age and needs of the children, this might look very different at times.

Working in residential childcare is necessarily child focused. It involves getting to know new children and helping them begin to feel secure, then providing ongoing care and support to build their confidence and teach coping skills. It also involves liaising with health and education personnel and other professionals to ensure that they get access to all appropriate services.

We are dedicated to looking after children, we focus on providing a stimulating environment where they can reach their potential, a place of sanctuary for children who have suffered abuse or neglect, or who have lost their parents. Children may be withdrawn and disinclined to communicate or may deal with their stress by becoming aggressive.

There is a risk of self-harm and of violence toward staff members and other children, so workers need to be familiar with de-escalation techniques and it helps to have good first aid skills, these skills and this training will all be provided should you consider a career with upwards Residential care in supporting our most vulnerable children.

In some cases, children in residential care homes still have good relationships with their families and may return to them after temporary difficulties have been resolved. In these situations, workers need to be able to communicate effectively with those family members and ensure that important emotional connections can be maintained whilst minimising the upset that can occur if children feel they are being repeatedly abandoned.

Childcare workers, working with children in this capacity are their first line of communication with the wider world. It is through the relationships these children develop with their carers that they will learn their most basic social skills, and this can make all the difference to the opportunities that will be open to them in adult life.

Few careers require more responsibility than working in residential childcare, and every day can be a challenge, but few careers come close to being this rewarding. Capable childcare workers will see the children they work with grow happier and more confident every day, with their futures growing brighter.

**Specific Duties and Responsibilities**:
To maintain a high quality of care and support which meets the physical, emotional, intellectual, social and cultural needs of children and children within the care of Inspirations. Working from the guidelines from the 1989 Children’s Act, National Minimum Standards and any other relevant legislation.

1. To provide a caring, supportive and nurturing environment in which children/children can feel secure and free from harm.

2. Establishing positive relationships with children and always offering them unconditional and positive regard.

3. Helping children gain self-control by challenging unacceptable behaviour and rewarding acceptable, pro-social conduct.

4. Ensuring that each child’s care plan is followed and amended as appropriate to reflect their changing needs.

5. Attending to practical matters in relation to childcare (cooking, cleaning, general maintenance around the home etc)

6. To act as a key worker or co-worker for a child to ensure that the child’s care plans are up to date and that all their care needs are being met.

7. To provide a positive role model to be able to offer advice, guidance and assistance where appropriate. Establishing relationships which children perceive to be positive, warm and rewarding Providing advice, assistance and support on a 1:1 basis to enable children to address past and present difficulties.

8. Providing emotional support at times of difficulty or stress Inspirations Upwards Residential Care - Job Description - Residential Care Worker.

9. Being ambitious for children, helping them achieve their goals and optimise their potential.

10. Providing support for children in their education and extracurricular activities, this may include supporting them in the classroom if necessary.

11. Keeping accurate records and providing written reports on children for planning meetings, reviews or any other meetings as directed by the line manager.

12. Empowering children and facilitating their active involvement in the decision making about their lives and future.

14. Encouraging the child to develop links with the com