Lead Support Worker

Lead Support Worker

Calne Wiltshire

Permanent, Full-time (37.5 hpw if full time)

Starting salary circa £24,000 pa based on experience. Additional Sleep-in and On-Call enhancements, plus brilliant benefits! 

Delivering support with a difference. Thats when it hits home.

We have a rewarding opportunity for you to lead a new team of Support Workers who are part of Home Group's new Transforming Care agenda. Your team will support our customer (let's call him J) who has complex support needs, including a learning disability, autism, communication challenges, as well as sensory needs.

J, who's in his early twenties, currently lives at home with his family elsewhere in the region. You'll help him adapt, transition and settle into living in his first ever own home. You'll soon discover that J is super intelligent, gentle and calm, a wonderful yet complex young man, who needs a dedicated and nurturing team to help him reach his full potential. J has sensory processing difficulties, is hypersensitive to sound and wears ear defenders to help him manage his sensitivity. When stressed or anxious, J can be challenging and aggressive, and thats why we really need you to take the time to get to know him, and be caring, understanding, reassuring and positive.

J loves spending time doing the things he enjoys and that are important to him; he loves arts and crafts, doing large jigsaws, cooking as well as playing games. Unfortunately, being outside is challenging for J right now, so we need your skill and expertise to help open up his world.

As our Team Leader you'll encourage and empower your team to help J overcome his barriers to help him lead a fulfilling and meaningful life and reach his true potential. You'll recognise his strengths and abilities and help him take the small steps at his pace, never losing sight of J's dreams and aspirations! You're patient, calm, caring and able to adapt your style to J's needs, as well as to the specific occasion and circumstances. J needs you to have a gentle nurturing and caring approach to help him settle into this new home and new life and be proud of how you can help him grow.

As our Team Leader (known internally by us as Positive Behavioural Support Team Leader) youll use your experience and brilliant skills to motivate and direct your team.  Youll manage your team to provide support that is person-centred, understands Js past life experiences and builds on his strengths.  Together, youll support him to enjoy the best quality of life and live as independently as possible.  With the help of Deb and our clinical team, youll help J to participate in his favourite things as well as trying new things through positive risk taking. Youll work alongside colleagues providing consistent support when J is finding things difficult as well as find creative ways to help him participate in daily living activities to increase his independence.

About our team

Youll work for Deb our Registered Manager who has worked for Home Group for 5 years. Deb has loads of experience in working with customers with both mental health and learning disabilities and has a clinical background in nursing. Deb was also an accredited psychotherapist in a previous life before joining Home Group and is perfectly placed to help you settle into your new role! Outside of work youll find her cheering on her local football team, spending quality time with her family and loves cooking for friends.

Where youll work

Youll work primarily with J in his new home in Calne Wiltshire, as well as supporting him out and about in the local community. During the transition period there will be a degree of travel between the two homes to help J settle, which is a really important element of helping J adapt to his new circumstances. It would be awesome if you drive and had access to your own transport to get from a-b as public transport in Wiltshire can be a bit of a challenge! Once settled into his new home, J will have his own car and it would be great if you could drive to help him enjoy being out and about.

Working hours

J needs support 24/7 to meet his needs, so there will be a variety of working patterns available. Ideally youll take your turn with your team working on a rota which could include working days, evenings, weekends, bank holidays and waking nights. You may also be required to do sleep ins or be on call where we apply an enhancement. If you are not able to do all shift times, we still want to hear from you, we are building a brilliant team from scratch and we want to be flexible with our approach. As were asking you to be flexible for our customer, well also give you the time back that you need to spend time doing the things that matter to you!

About you

You have an excellent working knowledge and experience in CQC Regulated services. Its important to us that you have worked in a Senior Support Worker role before, with experience of leading support for people with complex needs, including those with significant behaviours that challenge.  You are resilient, confident and willing to roll your sleeves up to guide, coach and support your team to develop the confidence to work with this customer. Youre flexible and creative in your approach to keep support motivating, fun and safe. With a Level 3 Diploma in Adult Health & Social Care or equivalent, you have a great understanding and passion for promoting independence and social inclusion through person centred support.

You provide personal care in a strengths-based way to facilitate greater independence, as well as use creative solutions, and assistive technology where available to support independence. To be brilliant you will have previous experience in supporting people using Positive Behavioural Support, and skills in the use of Makaton would be desirable.

To be awesome in this job, your key strengths will lie in people management and motivation, bringing colleagues together to share information, best practice, fostering creativity and overall ensuring our customer has a brilliant team!  You wont be left to it! Deb and our clinical team will be regular visitors to provide you with all the support you need!

When you join, youll need to have a valid Enhanced Check under the Disclosure and Barring Service. The great news is that we will pay for that to be done if you dont have a transferrable one.

How well support you

Dont worry, we wont drop you in the deep end, well develop your talent, help you learn quickly how things work here and youll have a fantastic induction with ongoing learning and development! Youll be trained to support our customers mental and physical wellbeing and to take positive risks to enable his successful journey to have his own home and being part of his community. If required (and only as a last resort), you may need to use physical intervention and we will provide you with training and support to do this safely.

We want you to get the right balance and to be always at your best to continue to deliver brilliant outcomes for our customer. So, your wellbeing and taking time back when you need it too is our top priority!

Want to know more?

If youre not reading this advert on our careers pages, press the APPLY NOW button to access lots of useful stuff! You can download the PBS Team Leader, and find out more about Home Group. Weve also got some short films that show you what its like to work here and how we have supported our colleagues during Covid. We know youll want to find out more about our award winning benefits and rewards package!

During Covid

Were continuing to deliver services for our customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and our brilliant colleagues are at the very heart of making that happen. Were doing things a little differently at the moment, so to keep everyone safe, well engage with you digitally where possible. Check out our awesome video to find out more on how our colleagues have felt supported here during the outbreak.

To apply

Dont delay applying for this brilliant job, as we may close it early if we get lots of applications! Just upload your CV and if you have one, your covering letter (this will help us learn more about you!). If you need them, weve also got some great templates to help you.

Youre unique!

Home Group play a big part in tackling prejudice and discrimination, not just for our customers, but colleagues too! You can be yourself here, because we value everything that makes you unique. So, whatever your age, race, sexuality, disability, religion, or gender identity, we recognise and celebrate our differences and make Home Group a great place to work!