Support Worker

Phoenix Learning & Care Group; London; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 28,000

Job description

About The Role

Job Title: Support Worker

Job Location: Dawlish & Teignmouth

Salary: Between £26,208 - £27,310.40 based on 40 hours per week, plus potential sleep-in allowance of £1,896 based on 4 sleep-ins per month

Contract Type: Permanent

Independence! That’s not much for people to ask for and our supported living services are dedicated to offering just that.

As a Support Worker within our independent living services, you’ll spend your time working across various locations in Dawlish and Teignmouth. Throughout the week you could be supporting a young adult to attend education or work, researching and advocating for an individual to meet their goals, helping people maintain their tenancies or planning a supported holiday (London, Brighton or Disney anyone?!). People often say that a job is “Varied” and “no two days are the same” – Working here, that’s 100% true.

Within Supported Living you will support a range of young adults with Autism, ADHD and learning disabilities, each with their own unique support needs, wishes and aspirations. Some of the adults we support may only need a few hours of help per week with appointments or finances, whilst others may need more time spent with them to further develop independent life skills. Nothing pleases us more than seeing the support needs of someone drop, because that means we’ve done our job well and helped them flourish and achieve.

In a role like this, there will be days that you face challenges. You’ll potentially need to support someone in unexpected ways and offer emotional guidance when needed. You really do need to be open-minded, empathetic, and resilient.

A day in the life of a Support Worker will involve:

1. Supporting adults to have the best quality of life possible. Whether it be supporting them to shop and cook independently, offering personal care, assisting them to budget, or simply being an emotional support when they’re having a tough day.
2. Liaising with wider teams internally and externally to ensure the support provided is right for the individual.
3. Advocating with and for people so that their wishes and values are taken into account in all areas of their lives.
4. Administration. We’ll need you to keep our records up to date so that we can evidence progress; ensuring the individuals receive the appropriate levels of support.

To be a successful Support Worker, you’ll need:

1. Patience, compassion, and resilience — The adults we support may have experienced trauma, which may impact the way they communicate.
2. Great communication skills – Both verbal and non-verbal communication is important in this role as you’ll be speaking to a lot of different people at different times and need to be able to adapt and update support records.
3. To be flexible – You may need to be able to sleep at the homes during your shifts, up to once per week. Some of the people we support 24 hours a day. This does mean you’ll be able to work your full week in 3-4 days!

In return for your time, you’ll get:

1. Holidays – You’ll get 28 days annual leave. You’ll still need to work on bank holidays if the rota requires. You’ll also get an extra day off for your birthday after your first year with us.
2. Pension scheme – Our pension scheme is based on you paying in 5%, and us adding 3%.
3. Learning & Development Opportunities – We provide comprehensive learning opportunities for team members to develop themselves.
4. Discounts – You’ll have access to brilliant discounts through the Blue Light Card and our own employee benefits platform.
5. Wellbeing Support – Your wellbeing is always our priority. You’ll have access to mental health and wellbeing support. On top of this, our therapies team offers a monthly confidential check-in clinic, and group reflective practice sessions.
6. Cycle2Work – The cycle to work scheme enables you to buy a bicycle at a discounted rate.
7. DBS – As this role requires you to have an enhanced DBS carried out, we will cover this cost.
8. After 12 months service – You’ll also be eligible for our Medicash scheme which covers a wide range of medical, health and wellbeing expenses (Including immediate access to a GP!). You’ll also get critical illness paid at x1 your annual salary and life insurance paid at x2 your annual salary, to support your next of kin through the difficult times.

Please note that as part of our safer recruitment processes, successful applicants will be subject to pre-employment checks including an enhanced disclosure and barring service (DBS) check, and online and social media checks, and reference validation.

At Phoenix Learning and Care, we pride ourselves on our diverse workforce, and ensuring we have an inclusive environment for all our team members. We remain committed to ensuring our teams can bring their true selves to work without risk or fear of discrimination.

INDA