About the Role
This post will be a short fixed-term contract from June 01st - October 01st completing 30 hours per week, with the option of being bank across the winter.
As an Children's Adventure and Activity Coordinator, you will be key in helping our young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties and learning difficulties engage in a wide range of fulfilling and exciting activities. This post will cover our homes across the Wiltshire area - Swindon, Chippenham, and Radstock.
What would I be doing?
- To plan and engage the young people in a wide range of innovative and exciting adventurous activities held both within the home and in the local area. This will involve group and individual activities such as rock climbing, kayaking, horse riding, paddle boarding, fishing, archery, bike riding etc.
- To be able to offer forest school based activities or bushcraft opportunities for children on a regular basis, either as part of an educational timetable or as recreational activities during the weekend or school holidays.
- To produce weekly activity planners for each child considering fun, educational, cultural, therapeutic, and adventurous activities. These will be organised in conjunction with the child's individual assessments. The activities will be supported by the child’s staff team or directly with the activities coordinator.
- To assist in organising team building sessions for each Home and larger adventurous activities such as bouldering or canyoning every 6 months.
- Monitoring the level of engagement by staff and children in adhering to the activity planner, identifying areas that children are finding difficult and reporting back to the therapeutic and operations team.
- To attend monthly therapy meetings with the team to feedback and plan for the months ahead.
- To build and maintain positive relationships with the young people that may find it hard to engage and who will present a wide range of complex needs and behaviours, offering them a passionate and enthusiastic support to engage in more adventurous activities.
- To support with building confidence within the young people at Park Blue Homes and supporting them to reach their full potential.
- Maintaining accurate and clear records and reports.
- To support in organising external partners from the wider community to provide specialised activities.
- Organising creative ways to get our children moving and engaging within the home and within the wider community.
What experience or qualifications would I need?
- Experience in outdoor activities is a MUST
- Certification from a recognised body to provide land or water based activities.
- Basic or Advanced Bushcraft Training or Forest School Certification.
- Outdoor/Remote First Aid
- Understanding how to plan and assess risks for adventurous activities.
- A genuine passion for supporting young people within the care sector.
- A strong team player
- A passion and enthusiasm for the outdoor world and working with children.
- Resilience to keep going at difficult times and to feel confident in asking for support when needed
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- A driving licence.
- Experience working alongside children with challenging behaviour.
- Adventure Therapy Experience would be an asset, or the desire to take part in a course to understand and learn the therapeutic part of this role.
- Enthusiastic with skills in activity planning .
What would I get in return?
- Overtime available
- Extensive training packages with time rostered out of your work rota to attend.
- Pension
- Staff meals whilst on shift
- Budgets to plan and arrange off-site activities and trips for the young people.
- Beautiful homes and grounds to work within
- Enrolment onto the Level 4 Children, Young People and Families Practitioner NVQ
- Career development opportunities
What benefits would I get from working at Park Blue Homes:
· Day off for your birthday
· Takeaway night for new starters
Shift Pattern:
Hours are 30 per week. Working days are between Monday to Sunday, with the right applicant working 3-4 days per week. Working hours will fall between 9am - 8pm. Hours during the week when the young people are at school will differ, but this will be discussed during interview. Some weekend work will be necessary.
The working hours are built around planned activities with the young people. If there are planned activities for the young people on a Saturday or a Sunday, this will reduce the number of days worked within the week.
This role does require a level of flexibility to support the needs of the young people and the activities planned. This may include overnight stays to accommodate certain activities.
It is desirable that holidays are taken outside of school holidays if possible.
Due to registration requirements, applicants must be 21 or over.
About Park Blue Homes:
Park Blue Homes are a group of independent Residential Children’s Homes, with seven homes in Wiltshire, three in Country Durham, and three in Doncaster. This post is for the South West only.
Park Blue Homes strives to provide exciting places for young people to live. Our teams are important to us, and we aim to recruit highly skilled and committed people that want to grow in their positions to help our young people.
Park Blue Homes is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of adults, children, and young people, and expects all staff to share this commitment.
Park Blue Homes is committed to valuing diversity and promoting equality for all.
All applicants will be required to undertake an enhanced DBS Check.
Park Blue Homes is an equal opportunities employer.
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Pay: £15.50 per hour
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company pension
- Discounted or free food
- Health & wellbeing programme
- On-site parking
Work Location: On the road
