Children's Residential Support Care Worker in Welshpool

Amberleigh Care is 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. Our working model informs the way staff are trained and supported, and our multidisciplinary teams are diverse in age, gender, experiences and backgrounds.

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, 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. Staff (and boys) have a very big say in the decision making in our service, both day to day and more longer term. One method is our annual employee survey which informs our service plan.

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 a successful difference to the lives of the young people.

Responsibilities: In essence, you will be part of a team of carers (divided into sub-teams) and working on a rota with a protected 3-day weekend off every 3 weeks 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, guiding, mentoring, nurturing, 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 relation 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.

Company Overview: Amberleigh Care is proud to have now changed its legal status to become 100% Employee Owned. This means we have no individual shareholders and no dividends. The employees influence and sustain how the service is run, and share in the benefits. It means that we have sustainability for our funding and continuity of management to protect our specialist service delivery – for staff, for young people and for local authorities. We are better together. Amberleigh Care is a specialist therapeutic residential care and education service. We work with a defined group of looked after children, boys, 11-18 and our care, education and therapy are systemically integrated in a very structured model of delivery. We use a group ‘therapeutic community’ approach to coordinate our living-learning, relational practice and the Good Lives Model as a key framework for intervention and planning. Amberleigh Care is a centre of excellence for young males who have exhibited inappropriate or harmful sexual behaviours. Our multi-disciplinary staff team receive specialist training and our approaches to assessment, intervention and even our operating environment are underpinned by research and the evidence base of what works in our area of practice.