Senior Residential Care Practitioner / Senior Residential Support Worker

Walsall, West Midlands

£38,683.63 per annum (increasing after successful 6-month probation)

This is a Senior Residential Care Practitioner position based in a 2-bedded children's residential home in Walsall, supporting young people aged 8 to 18 who've experienced trauma, emotional and behavioural difficulties, or moderate learning disabilities, and who deserve so much better than a revolving door of indifferent faces and generic care plans.

So what actually makes this different?

If you've worked in children's residential for any length of time, you'll know the difference between a home that's well-resourced on paper and one that's genuinely well-led in practice, and that difference matters enormously, maybe more than anything else when you're deciding where to take your career next.

Here's what this organisation actually looks like in practice:

• Their homes operate within a Non-Violent Resistance therapeutic framework, underpinned by attachment theory, and that's not just something written into a statement of purpose for Ofsted; it genuinely shapes how every interaction with a young person is approached, including the hard ones

• The Responsible Individual works closely with the registered manager and wider team to make sure young people have a real voice in their own care, with plans built around that voice rather than treating it as a footnote

• They've consciously chosen to keep their homes small, because small homes done well are where real relationships form, where a young person's face changes over months because someone kept showing up for them consistently

• Behaviour management is personalised to each individual young person, no two treated through the same model, which is not just philosophically sound, it's how you actually get outcomes worth talking about

• Training is intensive and purposeful, and staff development goes well beyond the mandatory basics

As a Senior Residential Care Practitioner here, your leadership will genuinely shape the culture of the whole home, rather than disappearing into a rota spreadsheet.

The Role at a Glance

• 2-bedded children's residential home in Walsall, West Midlands

• Working alongside a senior co-worker on a 3-week rolling rota

• Averaging 10 shifts per month

• Shifts run 07:30 to 10:30 + a sleep, plus a half-hour handover the following morning from 07:30 to 08:00

• Monthly contracted hours of 244.5, which includes training and team meetings

• Annual leave entitlement of 360 hours, which is worth factoring in when comparing this against other opportunities

Your Responsibilities

• Supporting and supervising the residential care team on shift, providing guidance, mentoring and professional challenge where it's needed

• Building consistent, authentic and nurturing relationships with the young people in the home

• Contributing to and reviewing individual care plans, risk assessments and key working sessions

• Working in partnership with families, social workers, schools and other professionals to deliver a genuinely wrap-around approach

• Supporting the registered manager in maintaining regulatory compliance and the quality of care in the home

• Attending and contributing to training and team meetings as part of your contracted hours

• Acting as a positive role model for junior staff, particularly around the home's therapeutic ethos and values

What We're Looking For

• Minimum of 1 year's experience managing or supervising a team within a children's residential setting

• Solid understanding of trauma-informed care and the needs of children and young people with emotional, behavioural or learning difficulties

• A Level 3 Diploma in Residential Childcare, or equivalent, with a Level 5 in Leadership and Management for Residential Childcare either already held or actively being worked towards

• Confident working within therapeutic frameworks and contributing to care planning that genuinely reflects a young person's wishes and feelings

• A full UK driving licence, which is essential for this role

A Note on the Hours

Residential childcare hours are not for everyone and there's no point dressing that up, but for people who genuinely thrive in this environment, the rota structure here works well in practice:

• You'll work consistently alongside the same senior co-worker across the 3-week pattern, which makes a real difference to both staff wellbeing and the experience of the young people in the home

• The home is small enough that you're never going it alone with people you barely know on shift

• That sense of continuity is built into how the whole place operates, not just a nice idea

If you've read this far and something in here feels familiar, maybe because you've been that person on a shift at 2am who found the right words for a young person who had no one else that night, then this is probably worth a conversation.

We'd genuinely like to hear from experienced Senior Residential Support Workers and Senior Residential Care Practitioners who are ready to bring their knowledge and their humanity to a small, purposeful home in Walsall where the work is taken seriously and the young people are at the centre of everything.

Apply now or reach out for an informal chat before you commit to anything, because that's the kind of conversation this sector needs more of.