House Keeper

House Keeper (17446)

Location: Sycamore Resource Centre

Contract type: Permanent

Hours: 37

Salary: £21,028 - £23,816 (Full Time Equivalent)

Closing Date: 30 November 2023

Interview Date: TBC

Cook and Housekeeper 

A Cook's job description and person specification has been attached to the advert for this role. This is a generic description, and this additional information sheet explains more about the Cook / Cleaner (Housekeeper) role at Sycamore. These attachments can be found on our website. 

It is important that you read the additional information carefully before you apply.  When completing your application, please refer to the skills, knowledge and experience detailed in the Person Specification and also in this Additional Information Sheet.

This post is located at the Sycamore Resource Centre in Banbury. Sycamore is staffed by a dedicated team and the Cook / Cleaner plays an important role in supporting the smooth day to day running of the service.

Sycamore provides a respite care home for up to five children aged between 5 and 17 years with different learning, physical, health and emotional needs. Our vision is to build happy and healthy childhoods and support every child to thrive.  The wellbeing of the children is at the heart of everything we do and mealtimes, particularly on birthdays, holidays and celebration days are an extremely important part of happy and healthy childhoods.

Specific Responsibilities of the Role:  Sycamore is a positive place to work, and every day is different. To be successful in this role you will have a range of cookery and kitchen management skills and enjoy the challenges and rewards of working in a respite care home for children. You will share our commitment to providing healthy, nutritious, and varied meals for the children and young people who stay overnight with us, and keep the home clean, also:

• Have good all-round food preparation and kitchen management skills.
• Enjoy planning creative and varied menus that meet the needs of the children and young people.
• Understand the importance of good nutrition and healthy eating.
• Have an eye for detail and understand the importance of good record-keeping.
• Understand the requirements of good Food Hygiene and maintaining an exceptionally clean working environment.
• Be able to work within a budget and plan for food orders and special celebrations and events.
• Be willing to be a part of the life of the children's respite care home.
• Part of the role is to routinely keep the home clean and tidy, maintaining the control of cleaning products.

Tasks:  The job description outlines some of the key responsibilities of the role and you will also:

• Feel confident to build positive relationships with the children who attend the service. You will not provide direct care, but you will take time to get to know them as individuals and be part of their daily lives.
• Create interesting and varied menus and meal plans that meet the specific nutritional requirements of the children and young people.
• Work with the Registered Manager to plan menus, food orders and work within an allocated budget.
• Undertake Health, Safety and Fire and cleaning aspects of running the kitchen, including daily, weekly, and monthly checks, throughout the home.
• Plan for and ensure meals are available on days when a cook is not working in the service.
• Help to make celebration days special by making birthday cakes and creating diverse and fun meals for the children and young people to try.
• Work as part of the Sycamore team to ensure Sycamore provides a safe, clean, and comfortable environment for the children and young people attending the service.

Training: You will have a full induction and training, including Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Safeguarding, Emergency First Aid, Risk Assessment, and Health & Safety. You will have monthly supervision meetings with your manager, an annual Performance & Development Review and be fully involved in Team Meetings.  Specific training around Food Hygiene is also available.

Salary:  A market supplement will be paid to the successful candidate in addition to the advertised salary.

Working hours:  The role is offered at 37 hours a week, working 10.30 – 18.00.  Specific working hours can be discussed at interview as these may be subject to change from the time of advert. 

For more information, contact Robyn.roberts@barnardos.org.uk Gurpreet.sandhu@barnardos.org.uk or lisa.brain@barnardos.org.uk or Carolyn.lewis@barnardos.org.uk

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, this is a positive change for the charity, and a key pillar of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to grow and develop in their career at Barnardo's.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• 26 days annual leave plus bank holidays, increasing after 5 years service
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

At Barnardo's we believe in children – no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. Please read about our basis and values following the link below. You will be asked questions relating to them as part of the recruitment process for this role.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is reflected in our values and our practice, and we have invested in this area of our work to ensure that we can deliver on our commitments to be an inclusive employer. EDI is a key enabler of our purpose as a charity and we want to ensure that the diversity of our teams is reflective of the communities we serve and that we continue to learn and develop our work with a focus on inclusion. We particularly encourage applications from candidates from Black, Asian and  Minoritised Ethnic Communities, candidates who are LGBT+ and Disabled candidates. 

Our basis and values