Personal Support Assistant

Salary:
Scale 3: SCP 5 – 6, £21,575 – £21,968 fte

Hours:
Full time – 45 hours per week, term time only
Closing Date:
9am Monday 12 June 2023

INTERVIEWS WILL TAKE PLACE ON:

Week beginning Monday 12 June 2023

Purpose of the Job:

The successful candidates will work alongside the Care team in a Junior House or the Sixth Form Hostel, to provide high quality care and support to the students, all of whom are blind or vision impaired. (No experience of this is required.)

The role involves getting to know the students in the house and supporting them in a range of ways. Although you will be allocated to one particular student, you will also be expected to work with all of the students in the house.

Main Tasks:

Provide high quality care:
To work with the Care team to provide a caring and supportive environment. This includes learning to understand the needs of the different children and working to support them to ensure excellent progress academically, socially and in developing independence.

Build trusting relationships:
To spend time with the students to ensure trusting and caring relationships are developed. To build a connection with individual students and their parents. This may include assisting students with personal or intimate care.

Support students to gain independence:
This requires the highest expectation of the students you are working with and supporting them to look after themselves, including supporting them to cook, launder, tidy, shop, manage money, improve academic performance including homework. To foster effective routines for mornings and evenings.

Medication:
To work with the staff team to ensure medication is dispensed safely.

Nurturing the students’ interests:
Enable the students to follow their passions and interests. This may involve supporting the students to take part in both on-site and off-site activities. Encouraging students to experience new opportunities beyond the NCW community.

Cooking and maintaining the House/Hostel:
To participate in cooking meals for the students. To undertake household tasks as required.

Team work:
To liaise with the staff team, parents and academic staff in order to achieve a consistent approach to the students’ development. Be open to self-reflection and attend regular supervision sessions.

Training and Meetings:
To participate in continued professional development. To attend staff meetings, student reviews and other meetings as requested.

Equal Opportunities Statement:

NCW is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is conditional on an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check.

Safeguarding Children:

NCW is fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of students at the College. You are responsible for adhering to the College’s policies on Child Protection and for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people you come into contact with.

Annual review:

This job description will be reviewed annually and may be subject to amendment or modification at any time after consultation with the post holder. It is not a comprehensive statement of procedures and tasks but sets out the main expectations of NCW in relation to the post holder’s professional responsibilities and duties.

This document is to be read in the context of NCW Statement of Purpose, NCW Equal Opportunities Statement, and agreed policies of the NCW and the Conditions of Service as outlined in the individual employee’s contract.

Important Information to read prior to applying to work at NCW:

Please note that any offer of employment will be subject to an Enhanced Disclosure and Registration through the DBS and Health clearance which will be arranged by the College.

If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to complete and return a criminal history / suitability self-disclosure prior to interview; any relevant information that you disclose will be discussed with you at interview. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 as a result of the Exceptions Order 1975 as amended in 2020, and therefore all unspent convictions, cautions and bind-overs, and any convictions or adult cautions that would not be filtered, must be declared on the self-disclosure. Please see the Ministry of Justice website for information about the filtering of offences.

By completing an application form, the applicant confirms they are not disqualified from working in regulated activity with children, or subject to sanctions imposed by a regulatory body, eg Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) or Health and Care Professions council (HCPC). NCW will seek references on short-listed candidates, and may approach previous employers for information to verify particular experience or qualification, before interview.

If the applicant is currently working with children, on either a paid or voluntary basis, their current employer will be asked about disciplinary offences relating to their suitability to work with children, including any for which the penalty is time expired (that is where a warning could no longer be taken into account in any new disciplinary hearing for example) and whether the applicant has been the subject of any child protection concerns which are founded / upheld. If the applicant is not currently working with children, but has done so in the past, that previous employer will be asked about those issues.

To provide false information is an offence and could result in the application being rejected or summary dismissal if the application has been selected, and possible referral to the police.

There are three ways you can apply for a vacancy at NCW.