- Advertised from 5th October 2026
- £13.45 per hour (with potential to earn £14.95 an hour). Seasonal – during Edinburgh school holidays (excluding Christmas)
- Holiday pay, training & development opportunities, life assurance, company pension, employee assistance programme, discounted gym membership, payment for disclosures & PVGs
Role
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 with a particular talent for supporting and encouraging children and young people with disabilities and complex medical needs to take part in play activities on a one-to-one basis.
Do you get a buzz from helping children and young people create laughter, mess and happy memories? We have a great opportunity for you to join our team as a Support Worker at our Holiday Support service.
About the role & your responsibilities:
As a Support Worker, you will help plan, deliver and develop play activities that enable children and young people to participate, connect and socialise in an inclusive environment.
This role may involve providing personal care support to individual children when required.
About you:
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
Application notes
To understand more about the role, please download our Support Worker – Holiday Support job description below
Please complete the job application form and equal opportunities monitoring form available on our website and return them to: jobs@theyardscotland.org.uk
Closing date: Monday 2nd November at 05:00pm
We’ll acknowledge all applications and intend to hold interviews on the 16th, 17th and 18th of November
We very much welcome previous experience working as: Care Assistant, Care Worker, Carer, Domiciliary Carer, Pupil Support Assistant, Nursery Assistant, Teaching Assistant, Personal Assistant
Downloads
The Yard is an award-winning charity that runs adventure play services for children with disabilities and/or additional support needs and their families.
Join us to help improve the lives of disabled children, young people and their families and carers by becoming our new Family Worker in Edinburgh.
About the role:
As Family Worker you will be providing information, emotional and practical support to families with children with a wide range of additional support needs, empowering them to understand and access the support available to them from external services.
The Family Worker role is essential in ensuring that families get the right help when they need it most.
About you:
This job is for you if you have:
- experience of working with children and young people with a range of disabilities and additional support needs
- excellent relationship building skills
- knowledge of children’s rights, trauma informed and inclusive practices
- an understanding of child and adult protection practices
- excellent organisational skills and administrative abilities
If you would like to work in a supportive and understanding work environment, ensuring that families feel valued and part of an inclusive community, we would love to have you on board.
Top job! Partnerships Development Manager
- Full time
- Circa £40,000
- Hybrid: Dundee, Edinburgh or Glasgow - minimum two days in the office per week
- Closing 26th October 2026
Running for almost 40 years, The Yard is an award-winning charity that aims to build a community of support for disabled children and young people through adventure play, creating opportunities for fun and friendship and wrap around support for the whole family.
About the role:
As Partnerships Development Manager, you will help generate the income required to sustain our services by engaging existing supporters and attracting new ones. You will lead corporate fundraising across all our sites.
Your key responsibilities will include delivering a corporate fundraising strategy and annual plan, raising The Yard’s profile among companies across Scotland, and building long-term relationships that grow regular giving, mid-value donations and legacy support.
About you:
If you are eager to raise the profile of The Yard as we expand our services across Scotland and think you can play your part in helping us reach our goals, we would welcome your application.
This job is for you if you have:
- A breadth of experience in meeting or exceeding funding targets
- The ability to think both strategically and creatively to build sustainable and innovative relationships
- Experience of excelling in planning and management of multiple priorities
- A good understanding of the needs of businesses and the contribution charity partnerships can make to their success
- Excellent interpersonal skills, with a positive attitude and a friendly, approachable manner
If you are inspired by our ethos and excited to bring your knowledge and experience to a team that is highly committed to our purpose, we would love to have you on board.
Family Worker, Dundee
- Part time
- £29,052 pro-rata
- On site: Drumlanrig Place, Dundee
- Closing 19th October 2026
The Yard is an award-winning charity that runs adventure play services for children with disabilities and/or additional support needs and their families.
Join us to help improve the lives of disabled children, young people and their families and carers by becoming our new Family Worker in Dundee.
As Family Worker you will be providing information, emotional and practical support to families with children with a wide range of additional support needs, empowering them to understand and access the support available to them from external services.
The Family Worker role is essential in ensuring that families get the right help when they need it most.
About you:
This job is for you if you have:
- experience of working with children and young people with a range of disabilities and additional support needs
- excellent relationship building skills
- knowledge of children’s rights, trauma informed and inclusive practices
- an understanding of child and adult protection practices
- excellent organisational skills and administrative abilities
If you would like to work in a supportive and understanding work environment, ensuring that families feel valued and part of an inclusive community, we would love to have you on board.
Residential Project Worker 2 (Days)
- Full time
- £29,507
- On site: Caern House, Gorgarbank
- Closing 7th October 2026
We are seeking an enthusiastic and committed Residential Project Worker to join our Short Breaks Service.
The post is a full-time day shift post, 37 hours a week, worked on a rota basis including weekends.
ABOUT CAERN
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.
At the Caern Short Breaks Service, we support up to 5 children and young people aged 5-18 by offering respite and short break packages to them and their families.
Working primarily in the residential setting you will promote the happiness, safety and welfare of the young people. You will play an active role in supporting the children and young people and their families/carers to achieve positive outcomes, as identified in the Young People's Individual Support Plans.
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 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.
For an informal chat about this role – please call 0131 339 8840
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 appreciate our colleagues' dedication and their commitment to delivering excellence in the vital work we do, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo'svalues. 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.
We are committed to a rounded colleague experience with an approach to both pay and rewards that are fair, attractive, and progressive. This is in support of our strategic ambition to ensure Barnardo's is a place everyone can belong, grow and thrive.
The salary range advertised is in line with our pay principles, for consistency and fairness while recognising the skills and experience applicants bring to the role. Appointing salaries can be discussed further at appointment stage; we do seek to appoint within this range always exercising responsible stewardship.
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. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.
- 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.
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