Residential Care Worker

About the Role

Calling all residential children's care workers, whether you're an experienced practitioner seeking a move within the children’s residential care sector, or are relatively new to it but have relevant transferable skills and life experience. If you share our passion for improving the lives of young people, providing them with the best possible experiences while with us, and giving them the greatest opportunities to thrive when they leave the safety of our care. If you want to learn, grow, and progress with an 'Outstanding' company that is committed to doing its best for its young people as well as its staff. And if you want to work in one of our three idyllic Peak District settings, we have a vacancy that's tailor-made for you.

Job Opportunity

At Arnfield Care, we are always on the lookout for the next batch of like-minded residential care superstars to join our ranks and progress their careers. And right now, after a number of promotions, we have junior and senior full-time roles available for the right people.

Key aspects of children's residential care work:

• Ensuring each young person is safe and cared for effectively, addressing care, education, social, emotional, cultural, therapeutic and health needs.
• Exercising appropriate control over children and young people at all times
• For more senior staff, leading, supervising and supporting staff members at junior levels as they provide round-the-clock care and support that is consistent with the Home’s quality standards and Statement of Purpose
• Working in partnership with parents, families, carers, and other professionals to advocate for, safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.
• Covering various shifts including early mornings, late evenings, and sleep-ins, on weekdays, weekends, and Bank Holidays, within the Homes and on residential trips.
• Promoting an organisational culture which values every team member’s contribution and is intolerant of discrimination in any form.
• Maintaining the highest levels of confidentiality.

Established in 1997 and based in the High Peak area of Derbyshire, we are an outstanding, small, and proudly independent provider of high-quality therapeutic residential care and on-site education for children and young people. We support young people, aged 11–17, to deal with a wide range of often complex adverse childhood experiences that have left them with social, emotional and behavioural challenges to overcome. We help them to rebuild trust, develop independence, and move forward with confidence.

Our care workers, therapists and educators pride themselves on being nurturing and supportive. At the same time, our approach is grounded in building warm, consistent, respectful and structured relationships tailored to individual needs, whether a young person is with us for a relatively short period of intensive crisis intervention work or here on a longer-term placement as they transition towards semi-independence. That's why we achieve consistently successful outcomes with young people, why staff stay with us and build long-term careers, and why we are recognised as an exemplar to others by Ofsted.

We offer:

• £13.05 - £16.06 per hour, dependent on the role applied for, qualifications and experience
• £70.50 per sleep-in
• A Minimum of 28 days' holiday, rising to 35 days for more senior staff, plus additional days for loyalty
• A great work/life balance
• Company pension
• Loyalty & referral bonuses, ranging from £50 - £500, plus perks and discounts
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme, available 24/7/365
• Fully funded training
• Long-term career progression

We employ people not paper!

Some of our best entry-level candidates bring a variety of transferable skills and valuable life experiences to their roles, making them excellent recruits for our team. Their knowledge of appropriate boundaries and innate ability to make connections with young people are the ideal foundation for our thorough training on the more technical aspects of our work. While for more senior roles, we need to see evidence of academic and on-the-job learning, we still place you and your lived experience as a person ahead of everything.

We achieve consistently successful outcomes with young people because we employ a diverse workforce that can empathise with the cultures they come from and the issues they face. People who have learned important lessons from the school of life often have the greatest impact on vulnerable children and young people who have already experienced significant challenges and trauma.

Essential Skills

You must...

• Be eligible to work in the UK
• Have a full manual driving licence
• Possess a good standard of both written and spoken English
• Have some previous experience working in children's residential care settings, or significant transferable skills for anything other than entry-level positions
• Have a level 3/4 in residential Childcare (or equivalent), if applying for a more senior role
• Have a basic awareness of Child Protection and Safeguarding practices
• Possess a strong teamwork ethic and have good communication skills
• Have an ability to relate to children and young people, especially those presenting challenging behaviour
• Be emotionally resilient and self-confident, while a splash of long-term ambition always helps
• Be prepared to promote equal opportunities and to challenge any behaviour or practice that discriminates against any young person or colleague.
• Have the ability to work flexibly and unsupervised on occasions, according to the needs of the service
• Be able to commit to full-time sleep-ins and, potentially, short residential trips away with young people

As an inclusive employer, Arnfield Care Ltd stands against discrimination in any form. We have created working environments in which all individuals can make the best use of their skills, free from discrimination or harassment. We endeavour to make all necessary reasonable adjustments for individual employees and base all decisions relating to an individual's employment purely on merit. And we challenge any behaviour that threatens the safeguarding of our young people and colleagues. Job offers and continued employment are conditional upon stringent pre-employment checks, thorough referencing, and maintenance of a satisfactory enhanced DBS clearance.

If you think you’ve got what it takes, get in touch. Send us an up-to-date CV and covering letter stating why you want to work with us and why you believe you are the right person for one of our roles.