Children's Residential Home Practitioner

Children's Residential Home Practitioner

Salary: £21,403 - £24,055 per annum, (plus enhancements for sleep-ins, evening, weekend and Bank Holiday working)

Work Location: The Mead, Odiham (10 minutes outside Basingstoke)

Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 21 March 2021

Contact details for an informal discussion: Nicky Meads, Residential Manager at Nicky.Meads@hants.gov.uk

Do you love working with children and young people and want to help make a significant contribution to their lives?

If so, we have the opportunity for a Children’s Home Practitioner to join us at our residential home in Odiham, just outside Basingstoke.

The key function of this role is to work directly with children and young people aged 10 - 18. Requiring a child centred approach and ability to build warm, positive and strong relationships with our children. You will be a positive role model supporting children's goals and development.

We believe passionately in ensuring our child care practitioners have the skills and knowledge to be able to authoritatively parent our children within our service. Through working within our Model of Care – Pillars of Parenting – we focus on each child’s individual strengths to support them to develop and achieve positive outcomes. 

Hampshire use a Pillars of Parenting Model of Professional Child Care which is an applied psychological model of professional childcare drawing on attachment and trauma theory, CBT and positive psychology. Monthly consultations are carried out with an Applied Psychologist (Educational or Clinical) and a plan based on psychological evidence-based practice is agreed and implemented for specific young people  

There will be an opportunity to carry out specific key work sessions with individual young people that draw on therapeutic approaches agreed during monthly consultations. You will be given training in pillars of parenting and psychological theories underpinning their practice. This training is carried out by two consultant psychologists who specialise in this area and you will gain subject relevant qualification.

It is essential that you have the ability to form warm and encouraging relationships with children to support their development and positive experiences, please see below further role responsibilities.

In return we offer the following generous benefits package:

• Access to paid in-house training and Continuing Professional Development.
• 24 - 27 days paid holiday, dependant on local authority service.
• Access to free and confidential Employee Support for you and your immediate family (including 24/7 counselling and advice).
• Salary and career progression.
• Opportunity to become a member of the Local Government Pension
• Scheme with employer contribution starting at 16.1% of your salary.

To view the full list of benefits available to you, visit the HCC empoyee benefits page. 

You will be responsible for:

• Forming positive and supportive interactions with children, their families and other professionals.
• Developing individual care plans and placements plans in conjunction with colleagues.
• Actively supporting and encouraging children to progress towards their full potential.
• Responding to and actioning any health needs of the children.
• Using appropriate IT and reporting systems to store information and keep accurate records.
• Carefully managing personal health and safety and contributing to the safe functioning of the home.
• Assessing risks to each child and making arrangements in place to protect them.
• Reporting and responding to any child protection concern in line with departmental procedures.
• Following individual behaviour management plans including physical handling strategies such as Team Teach.
• Engaging with activities which support continuous professional development.
• Maintaining an awareness of and complying with corporate and departmental policies and procedures. Ensuring any concern is addressed with management team.

Role Requirements:

Essential:

• Ability to form warm and encouraging relationships with children to support their development and positive experiences.
• Physically ability to participate in all aspects of Team Teach.
• Ability to demonstrate emotional literacy in relationship to self and others.
• Actively supporting and encouraging children to progress towards their full potential.
• The role involves shift work, which is likely to be 16-hour shift over two days (including an 8hr sleep-in) but may also be an early, late or weekend shift. With all shift work flexibility maybe required. Please contact Nicky.Meads@Hants.gov.uk for further understanding of the shift pattern.

Desirable:

• Awareness of the development needs of children in residential care.
• Knowledge of how to safeguard and support children in residential care who have experienced trauma, harm or abuse.
• QCF level 3 in Residential Child Care or equivalent. If you don't hold this qualification, you will be required to undertake an apprenticeship within a specified regulatory timescale*.
  
  *If you don’t hold the level 3 in Residential Child Care, we will offer you a place on our apprenticeship programme and our dedicated management team will support you in achieving your professional development goals.

Working conditions:

• Personal Care and food handling.
• Verbal abuse and/or aggression.
• Personal Protective Equipment.
• Rotating shifts (including sleep-ins, evenings, weekends and Bank Holidays).
• Human Blood or Human Bodily Fluid e.g. First Aid and chemical hazards.

Vetting Requirements:

This post is subject to a criminal records check. Please note in line with safer recruitment for Children's Services, references will be requested prior to interview.

Hampshire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults. We expect all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment. We will ensure that all our recruitment and selection practices reflect this commitment.

In order to combat discrimination, no unnecessary conditions or requirements will be applied which could have a disproportionately adverse effect on any one group. All sections of the population will have equal access to jobs. No applicant or employee will receive less favourable treatment because of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage or civil partnership and pregnancy or maternity, unless a Genuine Occupational Requirement (GOR) applies.

We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.