Ready for a New Challenge? Help Shape Brighter Futures for Children and Young People

Do you have a passion for supporting children and young people to overcome challenges, build resilience, and achieve positive outcomes? Are you committed to providing safe, nurturing, and relationship-based care? If so, we would love to hear from you.

We are looking for a Residential Children & Young People's Worker to join our dedicated team within an Emotional Well-being Home in Leicestershire. This is a full-time, permanent position offering the opportunity to make a genuine difference in the lives of children and young people.

Our home provides a safe, stable, and nurturing environment for children and young people aged 8–18 who may have experienced trauma, loss, disrupted attachments, or other complex life experiences. We support a small number of young people at any one time, enabling us to provide highly individualised care and meaningful relationships that promote emotional well-being, confidence, independence, and long-term positive outcomes.

Our practice is rooted in trauma-informed and relationship-based approaches. We believe that every child deserves to feel safe, valued, listened to, and supported to achieve their full potential.

Key Responsibilities

As a Residential Children & Young People's Worker, you will:

Build positive, trusting, and nurturing relationships with children and young people.
Support children and young people with their emotional well-being, daily routines, education, independence skills, and personal development.
Actively contribute to the creation of a safe, structured, and homely environment.
Work alongside families, social workers, education providers, health professionals, and other partners to support positive outcomes.
Participate in key-working sessions, care planning, and review processes.
Promote and safeguard the welfare of children and young people at all times.
Complete accurate, professional, and timely recordings and reports.
Support the day-to-day running of the home, including meal preparation, household tasks, and community activities.
Be a positive role model, helping children and young people develop confidence, resilience, and life skills.

What We're Looking For

To be successful in this role, you will be able to demonstrate:

A genuine commitment to improving the lives of children and young people.
The ability to build positive and meaningful relationships with children, young people, and colleagues.
An understanding of safeguarding, child protection, and professional boundaries.
Resilience, emotional intelligence, and the ability to remain calm under pressure.
Strong communication and teamwork skills.
A willingness to learn, reflect, and continually develop your practice.
A Level 3 Diploma in Residential Childcare, or a commitment to achieving this within the required timeframe.
Flexibility to work shifts, including sleep-ins, weekends, and bank holidays.

Previous experience working with children and young people is desirable but not essential. We recognise that people bring valuable transferable skills from a wide range of backgrounds and are committed to supporting the right candidates to develop within the role.

Why Join Barnardo's?

Barnardo's is the UK's largest children's charity and has been supporting children, young people, and families for over 150 years. We are committed to ensuring every child has the opportunity to thrive, regardless of their background or circumstances.

Working within our residential services offers the opportunity to:

Make a lasting difference to children's lives.
Receive ongoing training, development, and professional support.
Develop your career within one of the UK's leading children's organisations.
Be part of a supportive and values-driven team.
Work within a service that places relationships, safeguarding, and positive outcomes at the centre of everything we do.

Our residential services are delivered in partnership with Leicestershire County Council, providing innovative and high-quality care for some of the county's most vulnerable children and young people.

While your primary base will be in Leicestershire, there may occasionally be opportunities to support other services within the county.

For more information about this role, please contact Elisha Shamba - elisha.shamba@barnardos.org.uk

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 that due to the high volume of applications received for some posts, this advert may close before the advertised closing date. We therefore encourage interested applicants to apply as soon as possible.

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.

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 require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)

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

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.

Reference number:23137
Job Title:Residential Support Worker
Location:Leicester
Locality:Leicestershire
Contract type:Permanent
Hours:37
Salary:£26,666 - £30,351
Closing Date:29 July 2026
Interview Date:TBC

Connect with a cause that needs you!

Residential Support Worker

Ready for a New Challenge? Help Shape Brighter Futures for Children and Young People

Key Responsibilities

What We're Looking For

Why Join Barnardo's?

Benefits

Vacancy Alerts

Additional Info