Location: Newham, East London
Service: Children’s Residential Home – Solo Placement
Hours: Full-Time Waking Nights
Employment: Full-Time only
Sponsorship: Sponsorship is not available for this position
About the Role
We are seeking an experienced, confident and reliable Waking Night Senior Residential Support Worker / Shift Leader to join our children’s residential home in Newham, East London.
This is a solo-placement home supporting a young person with complex needs. The successful candidate must have significant previous experience working with children and young people with complex needs within a residential care environment.
Previous experience leading shifts within children’s residential care is essential.
This is not a passive waking-night position. You will be expected to take responsibility for the safe and effective running of the home throughout the night, provide clear leadership and direction to other staff, respond appropriately to safeguarding concerns and incidents, and ensure that the young person receives consistent, safe and child-centred care.
Essential Experience
Applicants must have:
- Previous experience working within a children’s residential care setting.
- Previous experience supporting children and young people with complex needs.
- Experience supporting young people whose presentation may include significant emotional and behavioural needs, dysregulation, high-risk behaviours and/or complex safeguarding needs.
- Previous experience leading shifts within children’s residential care.
- Experience directing, allocating and overseeing the work of other staff.
- Experience confidently responding to challenging and high-risk situations.
- Experience implementing individual risk assessments, behaviour support plans, care plans and safety plans.
- Experience responding appropriately to incidents and escalating safeguarding concerns.
- A good understanding of safeguarding children and young people.
- Knowledge and understanding of Deprivation of Liberty (DoL/DoLS) orders and how these affect day-to-day care, supervision, restrictions and decision-making.
- Strong professional boundaries and the ability to remain calm and consistent during challenging situations.
- Good written recording skills and the ability to produce clear, factual and professional records.
- A high standard of spoken and written English sufficient to communicate effectively with children, colleagues, managers and external professionals and to complete safeguarding and care records accurately.
Experience of working with children and young people with complex needs is an essential requirement for this position. Applicants without relevant complex-needs experience within children’s residential care will not meet the essential criteria.
Key Responsibilities
As the Waking Night Shift Leader, you will be responsible for:
- Leading the waking-night shift and taking responsibility for the safe running of the home overnight.
- Directing and supporting other staff members throughout the shift.
- Allocating duties and ensuring required tasks are completed.
- Ensuring staffing arrangements and levels of supervision remain appropriate throughout the night.
- Maintaining required observations and monitoring in accordance with the young person’s individual plans and assessed risks.
- Ensuring the young person is safeguarded and appropriately supported throughout the night.
- Understanding and implementing the young person’s DoL/DoLS arrangements and ensuring staff work within the authorised framework.
- Ensuring restrictions are proportionate, necessary, clearly recorded and implemented in accordance with the young person’s plans.
- Responding confidently to incidents, challenging behaviour, missing-from-care concerns, self-harm concerns, fire risks or other safeguarding situations.
- Recognising changes in presentation and responding appropriately to increased or emerging risk.
- Using appropriate de-escalation and relationship-based approaches when the young person is distressed or dysregulated.
- Ensuring staff do not become involved in unnecessary confrontation or power struggles with the young person.
- Making appropriate shift-level decisions while recognising when matters require escalation to management or on-call.
- Ensuring staff follow safeguarding procedures and immediately escalating concerns regarding the young person’s welfare.
- Maintaining clear professional boundaries while providing warm, consistent and child-centred support.
- Completing and overseeing accurate daily/night records, incident reports, safeguarding records and handover information.
- Checking the quality of records completed by staff before the end of the shift.
- Ensuring significant events are communicated promptly to the appropriate manager/on-call person.
- Completing required environmental, health and safety and security checks.
- Ensuring fire exits and escape routes remain clear and the home remains safe and secure.
- Completing medication responsibilities where appropriately trained and authorised.
- Maintaining confidentiality and complying with data-protection requirements.
- Providing a detailed and professional handover to the incoming day team.
- Reporting maintenance, health and safety or safeguarding concerns without delay.
- Supporting the home to maintain a safe, organised and nurturing environment throughout the night.
Shift Leadership Expectations
The successful applicant must be comfortable taking responsibility and providing clear leadership during the night.
You will be expected to:
- Give clear direction to other staff.
- Delegate tasks appropriately.
- Challenge unsafe or poor practice.
- Check that staff have completed allocated responsibilities.
- Ensure staff remain appropriately positioned and attentive to the young person’s needs and identified risks.
- Maintain professional standards throughout the shift.
- Make proportionate decisions based upon the young person’s risk assessments and plans.
- Respond confidently when the young person’s risk or presentation changes.
- Contact management/on-call when matters fall outside your authority or require senior oversight.
- Ensure incidents are managed safely and followed by accurate reporting and appropriate escalation.
- Provide a clear and accountable handover at the end of every shift.
Knowledge Required
Applicants should demonstrate a working knowledge of:
- Children’s safeguarding.
- Children’s residential care.
- Complex needs and high-risk presentations.
- Trauma-informed and relationship-based approaches.
- The Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015.
- Quality Standards for Children’s Homes.
- Deprivation of Liberty orders and restrictions.
- Risk assessment and dynamic risk management.
- Behaviour support and de-escalation.
- Missing-from-care procedures.
- Incident reporting and escalation.
- Professional boundaries.
- Confidentiality and information sharing.
- Health and safety within a residential environment.
- Accurate residential-care recording and handovers.
Qualifications
A Level 3 Diploma in Residential Childcare, or an equivalent relevant qualification, is desirable.
Where the successful applicant does not already hold the required residential childcare qualification, they must be willing and able to undertake the appropriate qualification within the required timeframe.
Relevant safeguarding, medication, first aid, behaviour management and physical intervention training would be advantageous.
Person Specification
We are looking for someone who is:
- Experienced in supporting children and young people with complex needs.
- Confident and able to lead others.
- Calm under pressure and able to respond effectively to high-risk situations.
- Assertive without being confrontational.
- Reliable and punctual.
- Professionally curious.
- Safeguarding-focused.
- Able to make appropriate decisions.
- Comfortable challenging poor practice.
- Able to work independently while knowing when to escalate.
- Consistent in their approach to children and young people.
- Emotionally resilient.
- Able to maintain clear professional boundaries.
- Child-centred and respectful.
- Able to work effectively as part of a wider professional team.
- Able to communicate clearly and professionally both verbally and in writing.
Important Requirements
This vacancy is for full-time waking-night employment only.
We are not recruiting for part-time waking-night staff for this position.
Sponsorship is not available. Applicants must already have the appropriate right to work in the UK for the position.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate previous shift-leading experience within children’s residential care.
Applicants must also demonstrate previous experience supporting children and young people with complex needs within a residential care setting.
These are essential requirements. Applications without relevant children’s residential shift-leading and complex-needs experience will not meet the essential criteria for the position.
Due to the responsibilities associated with safeguarding, recording, incident management and shift leadership, applicants must have a sufficiently high standard of spoken and written English to carry out all aspects of the role safely and effectively.
Safer Recruitment
Appointment will be subject to the home’s safer recruitment procedures, including:
- Enhanced DBS checks, including the appropriate barred-list check.
- Verification of identity and right to work.
- Full employment history.
- Exploration of any gaps in employment.
- Satisfactory professional references.
- Verification of relevant qualifications.
- Appropriate safeguarding and suitability checks.
The organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All employees are expected to share this commitment.
Pay: £13.00-£13.75 per hour
Work Location: In person
