Senior Residential Support Worker

Mickleover, Derbyshire | £14.50-£15.70 per hour (£30,160-£32,656 per annum) + Sleep-ins (circa £7,200 per annum) | Full Time | Permanent

This is a Senior Residential Support Worker role based in Mickleover, Derbyshire, working within a solo placement children's home supporting a young person with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD). The base salary sits between £14.50 and £15.70 per hour depending on experience and qualifications, which works out to between £30,160 and £32,656 annually before sleep-in payments are added. With sleep-ins paid at £60 per night, the realistic total earnings sit comfortably above £37,000 per year, and that is before bonuses come into the picture.

What Makes This Role Different

Supporting one young person in a home setting, with real consistency, real relationships, and real therapeutic purpose behind every shift, is a genuinely different experience to working in a four or five-bed EBD home where you can easily get lost in the chaos of numbers. In a solo placement, there is nowhere to hide, and that is what makes it so meaningful. Your impact is tangible, your relationships are deeper, and the work you do from one shift to the next threads together in a way that makes a difference you can see over time.

The provider behind this home has built something that feels, maybe more than anything else in this sector right now, like it was designed by people who have thought hard about what good residential childcare looks like. They describe their approach as being rooted in the fundamentals of good parenting -support, encouragement, emotional warmth, affection and patience. It shapes how the homes are run, how staff are managed, and how every young person in their care is treated as an individual with their own story, their own needs, and their own potential.

What You Will Be Doing

• Leading shifts and taking day-to-day responsibility for the young person's care, ensuring therapeutic approaches are consistently applied and that the home operates to a high standard in line with the Children's Homes Regulations 2015 and Quality Standards

• Contributing to and implementing care plans, risk assessments, and action plans, and attending statutory reviews and multi-agency meetings including LAC reviews

• Supporting, guiding and mentoring less experienced team members, with responsibility for shift handovers, staff deployment, and maintaining a consistent level of care across the team

• Building and maintaining positive, professional working relationships with social workers, CAMHS, education professionals, and other external agencies involved in the young person's care

• Completing daily records, communications logs, incident reports and other written documentation to a high standard, ensuring case files are accurate and up to date

• Ensuring the young person attends education, appointments and therapeutic sessions, and liaising with the registered manager where concerns arise

• Assisting with the day-to-day running of the home including cooking, cleaning, shopping and maintaining a safe, welcoming, homely environment

• Supporting the administration of medication in line with company policy and procedure

• Stepping up to cover in the absence of the registered or deputy manager where required, and participating in the on-call rota

What We Are Looking For

• NVQ Level 3 in Children and Young People (or equivalent) as a minimum, with Level 4 or 5 in Health and Social Care desirable and actively supported

• Demonstrable experience of working with young people aged approximately 12 to 17 who present with emotional and behavioural difficulties, including EBD and potentially ASC or mental health needs

• Experience of leading shifts and supervising or mentoring care staff, with the ability to hold professional standards in a consistent and supportive way

• Confident in completing LAC documentation, contributing to statutory reports, and attending external professional meetings

• A genuine commitment to therapeutic, child-centred care and the ability to maintain appropriate professional boundaries while building meaningful relationships with young people

• Emotionally resilient, patient, and able to apply sound professional judgement in complex or challenging situations

• A good standard of written and spoken English sufficient for report writing and case recording

• Flexible approach to shift work including sleep-ins, weekends and bank holidays, in line with a rolling rota

• A full driving licence and ability to drive the home's transport is desirable

What You Will Receive

• £14.50-£15.70 per hour based on experience and qualifications, reviewed twice yearly in March and October through a structured pay progression framework linked to your PDP and annual appraisal

• Sleep-in payments of £60 per night, contributing approximately £7,200 per annum to your total package

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

• Annual Appraisal Bonus, Probation Completion Bonus, and an Ofsted Bonus

• A staff referral payment for each person you bring into the organisation, paid after they complete their first shift

• An extra 8 hours of annual leave on your birthday

• Paid face-to-face training, with all mandatory and specialist development delivered in person rather than through a screen

• A company pension scheme and access to an employment assistance programme

• A paid Christmas party

The pay progression here is worth understanding properly because it is not just a vague promise. Increases are demonstrable, structured, and tied to your personal development plan and appraisal outcomes. If you are putting the work in professionally, the salary reflects that and it moves meaningfully rather than just getting a token annual increment.

The Therapeutic Environment

One of the standout aspects of working here is access to an in-house associate psychologist with over a decade of experience working specifically with children and young people, covering CBT, psychotherapy, family therapy, and psychological assessment. This is weekly or fortnightly contact, clinical consultation, reflective practice, bespoke staff training, and support that is woven into the way the team works day to day. For a Senior Residential Support Worker who wants to develop their therapeutic practice, that kind of clinical infrastructure is something you rarely find in providers of this size.

A Genuine Invitation

If you are an experienced Residential Support Worker, or a strong Team Leader ready to step into a senior role, and you have worked with young people with EBD in a residential childcare setting, then this is worth a conversation.

Apply with your CV, or if you would rather have a chat before you do, that is absolutely fine too. Sometimes the best way to know whether something is right for you is just to talk it through.