Senior Support Worker

Cambian Wing College is a specialist further education college offering both day and 38-52-week residential placements. We provide holistic education for students aged 16-25 years who have a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and associated mental health conditions. At Wing College, we use specialist education approaches, therapeutic support and environments and staffing expertise to prepare students to meet the demands of adult life in a positive way.

The young people we educate and care for come to us with a huge variety of needs and difficulties. Our challenge is to help them build the hope, confidence, knowledge and skills to unlock their potential. From innovative educational experiences to national curriculum programmes, supported by passionate teams of specialists and key workers, we actively enable each young person to achieve their personal best, all in an environment that best suits them.

Purpose and Summary of the job

To primarily work in the residential area providing guidance, support and encouragement to young people in a variety of settings including classroom, education and off-site activities. The job involves enabling our young people to develop by providing physical and emotional support. The role is about working as part of a team to maintain a stable, happy and caring environment that puts the health, safety and welfare of our young people first. Important qualities of this role are being a good role model and conducting yourself in a professional manner at all times whilst on duty or representing the company at outside events. To be a mentor to Support Workers.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Build good positive professional relationships with the young people and other staff at your establishment and throughout the Group and disengage with these appropriately.
• To do everything possible to maintain a safe, clean and enjoyable environment to live and work in, this will involve domestic duties.
• Know and actively promote young people’s specific needs and help meet those needs in the most appropriate way following all relevant policies and procedures.
• To assist young people with their medical and welfare needs and to report as required. To administer needs to residents and be a part of the medical audit process as required.
• To help our young people to maintain their personal cleanliness, general hygiene and appearance; this may include intimate care/invasive care as required when trained.

Person Specification

• We are looking for someone with at least 1 year’s recent experience of working with young people with special needs/disabilities.
• Knowledge of general health, safety and welfare of young people.
• Knowledge of how young people learn and develop.
• Ability to go wherever our young people go and participate and possibly lead indoor and outdoor activities.
• To be able to communicate clearly and easily with young people and others in a variety of ways.
• Ability to demonstrate understanding of the young people and to use it to work on own initiative.
• Ability to lead an effective shift.

The Cambian Group

We are one of the largest providers of specialist education and behavioural health services for children and adults in the UK. We provide a broad range of services across England including specialist education schools and colleges for residential and day students, residential care homes and a therapeutic fostering service.

We pride ourselves on being an Equal Opportunities Employer. And we are committed to safeguarding and protecting the young people and service users within our care. All candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check and reference checks. Cambian will conduct online searches of shortlisted candidates. This check will be part of a safeguarding check, and the search will purely be based on whether an individual is suitable to work with children. As care must be taken to avoid unconscious bias and any risk of discrimination a person who will not be on the appointment panel will conduct the search and will only share information if and when findings are relevant and of concern.