Residential Children Support Worker in London

To provide advice, assistance and support to young people aged 16-21 years old. To attend to their practical, physical and emotional needs. To act as an appropriate role model and to work closely with them to enable them to address their difficulties and achieve their optimum potential.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

• To maintain a high quality of support which meets the physical, emotional, intellectual, social and cultural needs of young people.
• To provide a caring, supportive and nurturing environment in which young people can feel secure and free from harm.
• Establishing positive relationships with young people and always offering them unconditional and positive regard.
• Helping young people gain self-control by challenging unacceptable behaviour and rewarding acceptable, pro-social conduct.
• Ensuring that each young person's support plan is followed and amended as appropriate to reflect their changing needs.
• Provide training in Independent Living Skills to enable independent living (budgeting, finding employment, cooking, cleaning, basic general maintenance around the home, etc.).
• To act as a key worker or co-worker for a young person to ensure that their support plans are up to date and that their needs are being met.
• To provide a positive role model to be able to offer advice, guidance and assistance where appropriate.
• Providing advice, assistance and support on a 1:1 basis to enable young people to address past and present difficulties.
• Providing emotional support at times of difficulty or stress.
• Being ambitious for young people, helping them achieve their goals and optimise their potential.
• Providing support for young people in their education and extracurricular activities.
• Keeping accurate records and providing written reports on young people for planning meetings, reviews or any other meetings as directed by the line manager.
• Empowering young people and facilitating their active involvement in the decision-making about their lives and future.
• Acting as an advocate at meetings where the young person is the subject of discussion.
• Encouraging the young person to develop links with the community, attend off-site activities and expand their personal social network.
• Maintaining confidentiality whilst also meeting the Sharing Information protocols in regard to safeguarding.

To Work as Part of a Team:

• Being aware of the aims and objectives of the service and working collaboratively with colleagues to achieve them.
• Attending team/staff meetings and making a positive contribution to them.
• Actively contributing to the development of the team.
• Receiving and storing information to improve communication.
• Being willing to give and receive feedback on performance with colleagues and managers.
• Being aware of support plans for all young people and providing support for colleagues by maintaining consistency in the execution of those plans.
• Providing informal practical and emotional support to colleagues experiencing difficulties.
• Attending and contributing to regular supervision sessions.
• Monitoring the conduct of colleagues and referring on any causes for concern (Whistleblowing).
• Being familiar with all policies and procedures and adhering to them.

General Responsibilities:

• Attending young people's meetings and contributing to them.
• Driving personal/company vehicles (preferable, but not essential).
• Receiving training appropriate to the role and maintaining an up-to-date training profile.
• Responsibility for the accurate maintenance of financial records appropriate to the duties of the post.
• Responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of self and colleagues in accordance with the requirements of the organisational Health and Safety Policies.

Required Skills:

• Driving
• BASIC Cooking
• Confidentiality
• Reviews
• Budgeting
• Records
• Education Planning
• Maintenance
• Training
• Communication