Children's Residential Childcare

From your first day, you’ll receive a structured induction designed to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to support young people effectively. We understand that a thorough induction is essential for building a strong foundation in your role. That’s why we provide a structured and carefully planned introduction to ensure you feel supported and confident from day one.

Our induction process focuses on four key areas:

• Building relationships with your immediate team, supervisor, and the young people in your care.

• Connecting with key professionals who support your practice, both within the home and across external agencies.

• Clarifying your role and responsibilities, including essential policies, procedures, and best practices in residential care.

Identifying resources and support networks to help you thrive in your role while aligning with the council’s wider objectives.

Your time with us is invaluable, and we are committed to supporting your growth and development every step of the way.

We offer a clear career progression pathway with internal and external training opportunities, including specialist workshops, accredited qualifications, and masterclass programmes. These opportunities are designed to enhance your skills, build confidence, and help you plan your future career—whether that’s progressing into senior roles, specialising in a particular area of practice, or moving into management.

Newly appointed residential child care workers benefit from a structured induction and comprehensive training programme. This includes core learning in safeguarding, trauma-informed care, behaviour management, and attachment theory. Staff are supported by experienced mentors and managers, ensuring they develop the knowledge and confidence to provide high-quality care.

As you gain experience, you’ll have opportunities to undertake further training, including Level 3 and Level 5 diplomas in Residential Childcare, leadership courses, and specialised training in therapeutic approaches. Progression is based on demonstrating learning in practice and supporting young people to achieve positive outcomes.

Residential child care workers can develop a specialism in areas such as mental health, SEND, or transitions, allowing them to take on mentoring roles and share expertise with colleagues. Those aspiring to management can be supported through leadership training, preparing them for deputy or registered manager roles. 

We understand that regular, planned and competent supervision is a right and a requirement for all of our social work team.

We believe Critically Reflective Skills (CRS) is an excellent way of ensuring continued professional development in line with our standards, Social Work England expectations and the overall regulation of professional practice. To ensure this remains a key part of our work at all times we’ve invested in CRS training for all managers and senior practitioners to ensure they have the skills they need.

This, in turn, helps our frontline social care staff to understand why it is important to review their own work and gives all our team an opportunity to enhance their skills and develop better ways of working.

Our ambition is not just to be the best borough for adults with health and social care needs but to be the best borough for the staff and services that work with them.
As a result, we’ve produced a comprehensive set of practice standards.

Adherence to those standards will play a vital role in ensuring staff are working to high standards and to drive up the quality.  The practice standards incorporate key guidance and expectations for staff and managers in line with legislation, policy and procedures. 

We know that having a manageable caseload is one of the top priorities for team members. Newly qualified social workers and ASYE’s will have protected caseloads and additional support with the most complex cases. More experienced staff have larger but manageable caseloads to ensure they also have time to also focus on their professional development. 

Our Principal Social Workers and senior practitioners have created a Social Worker Forum at which team members meet up to raise issues that impact on how we deliver services.

The issues being raised are then raised with senior management to help drive improvements

Managers are encouraged to take up a range of development opportunities and put that learning into practice and share their knowledge to improve our teams.

Our rota system, meanwhile, is organised so that learning and development doesn’t take managers away from their teams for too long and someone is always on hand to support junior staff.

As with any job, it’s hard to perform at a high level without the right tools.

We’ll ensure you have modern, up-to-date mobile working solutions along with the appropriate software and training to ensure technology is a help and not a hinderance.