The Yard is an award-winning charity that runs adventure play services for children with disabilities and/or additional support needs and their families.

We are looking for individuals who have the special ability to support and encourage play activities on a 1 to 1 basis with children and young people with disabilities and medically complex needs.

About the role & your responsibilities:

As a Support Worker at Holiday Support, you will play an active role in the set-up, delivery and development of play activities, encouraging and enabling children and young people to play and socialise in an inclusive way.

There will be some requirement to assist and undertake personal care with individual children when required.

About you:

Do you get a buzz from helping children and young people create laughter, mess and happy memories? Then we would love you to be a part of our team.

This job is for you if you have:

• Experience of working with children and young people in a play or youth work setting or, alternatively, in a home environment
• An empathetic approach with the ability to trust in others
• An ability to work in a flexible manner, as an individual and as part of a team
• The ability to register to successfully with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), and undertake an acceptable PVG check

To understand more about the role, please download our Support Worker – Holiday Support job description below.

We are seeking to recruit enthusiastic and committed As & When Residential Project Workers for our Caern Short Breaks and Pentland Way services.

We have a variety of posts available across both Projects for Days and Waking Nights. Hours and days can be tailored to suit your flexible needs as an As & When worker.

ABOUT THE SERVICES

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 forty years.

Our Caern Short Breaks service supports up to 6 children and young people at any one time aged 5-18 by offering short break packages to them and their families. All staff play an active role in supporting the children, young people and their families/carers to achieve positive outcomes, as identified in the Young People's Individual Support Plans.

Our Pentland Way service is a residential setting providing support to up to three 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

You will work As & When shifts to assist with gaps in the Service rota due to staff vacancies, holidays and sickness absence. You will be supported and managed on shift by our Residential Project Workers. Typical day shifts are worked over 8 hours between the hours of 7am and 10pm and Waking Night shifts are worked over 10 hours - typically between 10pm and 8am. As an A&W worker, you have the flexibility to work the shifts that suit your own needs.

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 would be an advantage. Communication with the young people is paramount - the key is time tabling; structure; reliability and consistency. You will be faced with behaviours that challenge, including physical.

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 hold (or be willing to work towards) a relevant professional qualification at SCQF level 7 or above (for example SVQ3 children and young people) plus an HNC in social services. These qualifications are required to register with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) as part of your employment. There may be external grants available to partly fund this.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

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, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role 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.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave 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

Are you playful, adaptable and a good communicator? We are seeking a Play and Wellbeing Practitioner to deliver high-quality, self-directed play opportunities across Midlothian, as part of a team. This is an active, hands‑on role with a strong emphasis on outdoor play in all weather conditions.

About Play Midlothian

Play Midlothian is a registered charity (no. SC025474) working to enable every child in Midlothian to thrive through play by creating opportunities, removing barriers and addressing inequalities. We have an office base at the One Dalkeith Business Hub in central Dalkeith, but deliver services throughout Midlothian, and if commissioned, beyond.

About the Role

The postholder will work across our various services, supporting children and young people aged 0-14, including children with disabilities and those with emerging mental health challenges, and their families. We champion adventurous, self-directed play, with a focus on loose parts, and use varied community settings to create rich play opportunities. A high proportion of sessions take place outdoors, all year round.

Travel and transportation of play resources to multiple sites across Midlothian is required for successful delivery of our services. Sessions take place at various times, including during the school day, but most are after school hours and at weekends. Flexibility is therefore required, though we do aim to share out weekend working on a rota pattern so that everyone gets predictable weekends off.

If you are enthusiastic about enabling children to play in their own ways, we would love to hear from you.

Resolve ASL Mediation sits as a part of the Services, Participation and Policy department within Children in Scotland, alongside Enquire, the national Additional Support For Learning Helpline, and the Children’s Views Service which supports children with additional support needs to share their views in formal, adult-led disputes. The department also includes our Policy and Participation teams.

Established in 2004, Resolve is currently the largest independent mediation provider to the education community in Scotland. Our service supports parents, carers, children and local authorities to explore options and rebuild relationships in situations where there is disagreement around a child’s education and access to support.

We have a strong reputation built on many years of experience and success helping resolve conflict in education. Our core service has an emphasis on building trust and understanding to promote and support effective relationships and good communication.

Our team has a wide range of knowledge on additional support for learning legislation and the Scottish education landscape. Working with a team of skilled sessional mediators, the service is managed and delivered by the Service Manager and Senior Officer.

We are looking for an experienced and motivated Senior Mediator to join our team and help us deliver Resolve’s mediation services across 15 local authorities in Scotland.

As Senior Mediator you will carry a mediation caseload and provide guidance and supervision to our team of sessional mediators and help us continue to promote and develop Resolve as a service. When required you will recruit, train and mentor new sessional mediators.

As required you will support Senior Officer with day-to-day case management to scope out incoming referrals and allocate to the mediators, liaise with parents/carers and local authority representatives, and ensure that all data trackers are kept up to date.

About Children in Scotland

Giving all children in Scotland an equal chance to flourish is at the heart of everything we do.

By bringing together a network of people working with and for children, alongside children and young people themselves, we offer a broad, balanced and independent voice. We create solutions, provide support and develop positive change across all areas affecting children in Scotland. We do this by listening, gathering evidence, and applying and sharing our learning, while always working to uphold children’s rights.

Our range of knowledge and expertise means we can provide trusted support on issues as diverse as the people we work with and the varied lives of children and families in Scotland.

Diversity

Children in Scotland values the contribution of all our staff, whatever their background. Our recruitment decisions are based on fair, open processes, with appointment on merit. We welcome applications from everyone.