Residential Support Worker

Mickleover, Derbyshire

£12.90 to £13.50 per hour + £60 Sleep-ins

This is a permanent, full-time Residential Support Worker position based in Mickleover, Derbyshire, working a one-on two-off shift pattern with sleep-in duties paid at £60 per night, which brings your realistic total earnings to somewhere in the region of £34,032 to £35,280 per annum when you factor in sleep-ins across the year. The starting rate sits at £12.90 per hour, rising to £13.50 as a Shift Leader, and pay reviews happen twice a year in March and October, so you're never waiting around indefinitely for recognition of your progress.

Now, there are a lot of Residential Support Worker jobs in Derbyshire right now, and to be honest, most of them look pretty similar on paper. So let's talk about what's actually different here, because there are a few things worth paying attention to before you scroll past.

This organisation operates small, low-occupancy children's residential homes. Smaller homes mean you genuinely get to know the young people in your care, you're not just a face on a rota, and the relationships you build are real ones. The ethos running through everything they do is grounded in what they describe as the fundamentals of good parenting: support, encouragement, warmth, and patience.

What also sets this organisation apart is the clinical infrastructure behind the care. There's an in-house psychologist involved in the homes on a regular basis, providing staff with psychologically informed guidance, bespoke training, and consultation. If you've worked in children's residential care before, you'll know that kind of support is not something you find everywhere, and it makes a tangible difference to how staff feel equipped to handle the complexity of the work.

What the package looks like in full

• Starting salary of £12.90 per hour (RSW) rising to £13.50 per hour (Shift Leader), with twice-yearly pay reviews every March and October

• Sleep-ins paid at £60 per night, adding approximately £7,200 per annum to your earnings

• Overtime rate of an additional £2.50 per hour after 160 hours per month

• Probation Bonus paid on successful completion of your probationary period

• Annual Appraisal Bonus recognising your ongoing contribution and development

• Ofsted Bonus, because the quality of care you deliver genuinely matters and this organisation puts its money where its mouth is

• Paid face to face training, so your professional development doesn't come out of your own pocket

• Support to work towards your QCF Level 4 in Children and Young People's Workforce as you progress

• Referral bonus paid after a friend completes their first shift, which is a nice way to grow a team you'd actually want to work with

• An extra 8 hours annual leave for your birthday, because everyone deserves a day that's actually theirs

• Paid Christmas party

• Company pension scheme

• Employment assistance scheme for when life gets a bit much outside of work

What the role involves day to day

• Providing consistent, relationship-based care for children and young people aged 8 to 18, including those with emotional and behavioural difficulties, trauma histories, and complex needs

• Supporting young people with daily living, activities, education, and statutory meetings related to their time in residential care

• Completing daily recordings, care plans, risk assessments, and document checks accurately and on time

• Attending fortnightly supervision and contributing to staff meetings

• Working alongside senior staff and shift leaders to ensure the home runs to a high standard and in line with Ofsted requirements and the Children's Homes Regulations 2015

• Role modelling positive behaviour and professional standards for both young people and newer colleagues

• Supporting young people with leaving care planning, community engagement, and building the kind of social networks that genuinely help them long term

• Maintaining the home environment to a high standard, including cooking, cleaning, and the kind of everyday domestic responsibilities that make a house feel like a home

What we're looking for

• Previous experience working with children or young people, ideally in a residential childcare setting, though transferable experience from youth work, education, foster care, or similar will be considered

• A good standard of written English sufficient to complete records and reports to the standard required in a registered children's home

• Emotional resilience and the ability to maintain appropriate boundaries while still forming genuine, trusting relationships with young people

• A person-centred approach and the flexibility to work shifts including nights, weekends, and bank holidays as part of the one-on two-off pattern

• NVQ Level 3 in Caring for Children and Young People is desirable, and the organisation will support you in working towards this if you don't already hold it

• Full UK Driving Licence and confident driving

This is children's residential social care, so it would be daft to pretend it's always easy. The young people in these homes have often had a pretty rough time of it, and the work asks something real of you. But the organisations that do this well, the ones that invest in their staff the way this one does, tend to be the places where people build long, meaningful careers rather than burning out after eighteen months. The psychological support available here, the structured supervision, the investment in qualifications and training, those things exist because leadership understands what the job takes.

If you're interested in a Residential Support Worker role in Mickleover, Derbyshire and you want to work somewhere that takes the welfare of both its young people and its staff seriously, we'd genuinely love to hear from you.

You don't need to have everything perfectly lined up before you get in touch, sometimes the best conversations happen before you've even decided for certain. Drop us a message, send your CV, or just reach out for a chat about whether this could be the right fit.