Benefits:

• 29 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays, with up to 5 additional days for continuous service and option to buy or sell leave
• Gain professional qualifications and excellent training/development opportunities
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages
• Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover
• Staff discount portal and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailers discounts.
• Vulnerable children in the UK need your help

Wherever you work in the Action for Children family, you'll be helping to change the lives of the most vulnerable children in the UK.

Last year, we helped more than 670,000 children and families across the UK. From direct work in communities to national campaigning, we are focused on making sure every child has a safe and happy childhood, and the foundations they need to thrive.

Why Action for Children?

Working here is more than a job. Everyone in the Action for Children family is passionate about protecting and supporting children. It's the sense of purpose that drives us every single day. Because we know that, when we work together, we can make a huge difference to bring lasting improvements to vulnerable children's lives.

A bit about the role

Couthie House provides long-term residential care and support to children who are unable to live within their family home. The service offers a stable, secure, and nurturing environment with a strong focus on individual needs and developing life skills. These life skills empower each young person to make meaningful choices, develop, grow up, and become resilient.

Our Team Leader Residential plays a pivotal role in ensuring the highest quality of care and support for children who are unable to live within their family homes. With a compassionate and dedicated approach, the Team Leader oversees the day-to-day operations of our residential care service, fostering a stable, secure, and nurturing environment.

You'll lead, encourage, inspire and motivate a team of up to 14 staff and will work closely with the Registered Manager. With a strong background in managing complex learning disabilities and challenging behaviours, this role exemplifies dedication, insight, and a deep understanding of the unique challenges faced by the children in our care. Your leadership is instrumental in creating an environment where every child can thrive and reach their full potential, as well as, creating and maintaining the culture across the services that's needed to support our staff.

How you'll help to create brighter futures

Some key responsibilities for the Team Leader Residential role are;

• Providing direct line management to a team of residential staff to deliver high standards of care.
• Support staff team development through training opportunities, staff supervision, and multidisciplinary working.
• Leading shifts and working with the Registered Manager to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and organisational policy and procedure.
• Working to achieve positive outcomes for individual children and young people and contributing to the achievement of an outstanding, good or equivalent rating in external inspection including deputising in the absence of the Registered Manager.

Let's talk about you

• Must possess SVQ4 Leadership & Management or willing to work towards within 2 years of taking up post.
• Experience of managing staff, also providing visible and effective leadership and management by example.
• SSSC registered.
• Significant experience of working with children and young people with Learning Disabilities.
• Demonstrate informed decision making and judgement, utilising these skills to anticipate and identify problems and find solutions
• Good knowledge of Safeguarding, and keeping young people safe.

We are seeking to recruit an enthusiastic and committed senior Residential Project Worker 3 to join our Pentland Way Residential Service.

Barnardo's Caern Disability Services consists of three unique Projects who deliver a variety of quality services for young people with learning disabilities and/or autism. We have done this for over 40 years.

Our Pentland Way Service is a residential service providing support for up to three older young people. Using a person-centred approach, we aspire to create an environment in which the young people are happy, nurtured and safe. We aim to enhance their lives by supporting them to develop independence in both the domestic environment and the community.

About You:

Ideally you will have experience in working directly with children and young people in a residential setting. Experience in supporting children and young people with a learning disability and/or Autism is required.

You will work directly with the children and young people on shift, as part of the staff team on rota. In addition to this your main role will include

• Responsibility for the day to day running of the house
• Leading the staff on shift including rota management, leading practice and ensuring staff are working to high levels of performance in the best interests of the C&YP in our care.
• Supervision of staff including Residential Project Workers and As & When staff
• Supporting the Team Manager and Children's Service Manager with the ongoing development of the Service

The staff team across Caern Services must be fully accepting of our children and be prepared to offer them a professional relationship based on acceptance and informed by our understanding of their individual needs, wishes and experiences. We are passionate about the children and young people that we care for, showing understanding, empathy and consistency in our approach.

You will currently hold or be working towards a SVQ3 (Children and Young People) and also be willing to work towards a recognised SSSC qualification/s relevant to this role (Residential Worker with Supervisory Responsibilities).

This is a full-time position (37 hours). Working on a dayshift rota basis, you will typically work a rota of 5 out of 7 days, including weekends. You will require to be flexible for the needs of the Young People and the Service.

For an informal chat about this role – please call Aileen Gallagher on 0131 339 8840.

Please see the attached role profile on our website for further information. When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification, Job Description and Additional Information document. This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours. More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• 26 days annual leave plus bank holidays, increasing after 5 years service
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

Our basis and values

Scottish Love in Action harnesses the compassion and generosity of people in Scotland, to support the poorest and most vulnerable children and young people in India. We are a local charity with a global impact.

We believe every child deserves to thrive. For 24 years we’ve been working with local partners in South India to help create life-long change for children, their families and their communities.

In 2025 we celebrate 25 years of giving children the opportunity to thrive. We’re looking for someone to join us on this journey.

We’re looking for someone to deliver an effective finance and support service for the charity. This includes oversight of finance, administration, and IT.

Charity experience is welcome but not required. We recognise transferrable skills.