Residential Youth Support Worker

Vinney Green Secure Children's Home offers young people a safe, caring environment, where they will experience quality care, education, vocational and life skills training. Your part in the programme will be to help young people develop the values, skills, knowledge, self-control and direction that will enable them to return to the community on a more positive and purposeful way.

What will you be doing?

You will provide on-going care, supervision and control of young people resident within the Vinney Green Secure Children's Home within the framework of the regulations, which govern secure accommodation.

You will oversee all aspects of security and ensure procedures, routines and recording functions are carried out and you will assist in the compliance of Health and Safety regulations, including ensuring the maintenance of fire precautions, fire drills and familiarisation of evacuation procedures.

You will contribute to the protection of young people from abuse including bullying and intimidation by others and assisting in the identification and assessment of their problems, needs and potential.

You will establish good, professional relationships with young people who display high risk and often challenging behaviour and to model pro-social behaviour, supporting young people experiencing change in their provision of care, via induction into the Home and preparation for leaving.

You will organise, plan and oversee individual and group activities, designed to enrich the young people's experience at the Vinney Green Secure Children's Home and you will participate in the education of the young people, including the assisting with in-class studies and homework.

You will need to set and maintain appropriate limits on young people's behaviour and create opportunities for them to develop more positive behavioural responses, promoting pro-social conduct.

What we need from you

You will be required to undertake training and development activity, including achievement of the Level 3 RQF programme within an agreed timescale.

You will possess excellent communication skills (both written and verbal) in order to record and communicate essential information. This will include the use of basic computer packages such as MS Word and MS Excel.

You will have an understanding of the demands of working with young people who may have complex needs and to be able to deal with these in a non-judgmental manner.

Ideally you will also have previous experience of working in a secure setting or working with young people who present challenging behaviour.

Please note that due to the nature of this role it is a requirement of employment that an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is obtained for this post.

The salary is plus a Secure Unit allowance of £2,583 per annum and enhancements for Sunday and Bank Holiday working.

The home works on shift patterns, you will be working an average of 37 hours per week, following a designated shift pattern working between the hours of 7.30am - 10.30pm, alternate weekends and some shifts may be on bank holidays. Meals are normally eaten with young people.

Young people can present physically threatening behaviour and the environment can become tense and anxiety provoking, so for everybody's safety surveillance cameras are in use in most areas of the building.

Vinney Green operates a full non-smoking environment, and there is no provision to facilitate smoking anywhere on site. Staff's personal belongings are required to be left in a provided locker on entry into the building and we may require you to undertake a further physical fitness check.

This role is demanding and there will be some physical active aspects to the job, but we can assure you that this will be one of the most rewarding jobs that you will ever do!