Senior Support Worker

Who are we?

Deaf Action is a deaf-led charity, supporting and celebrating deaf people. We were established in 1835 and work with deaf people across Scotland and the South of England. Our work is geared towards empowering all deaf people to achieve their potential and fully participate in society, with equality of rights, access and opportunity.

You can find out more about us here.

About you

We are looking for people who are caring, fun, motivated, willing to learn and show initiative. The people we support want our team to be friendly, reliable and practical.

If you have experience in supporting people in their own homes, tenancies or a care home setting, that is beneficial/great. If you don’t, it’s not a problem and we can provide training.  We always provide on the job and formal training, and our support workers often go on to complete formal qualifications in social care. If you already have knowledge of BSL that is a bonus, however we can provide training if you do not.

The ideal candidates will be fully committed to our values.

The role

You will be working with a team to support deaf people living in a care-at-home service, delivering a person-centred service. This will enable them to fully participate in the decisions affecting their lives, ensuring that wherever possible, service users benefit from informed choice, control, and independence. This will include both activities at home and within the community, all of which will promote independence and social inclusion. You will be accountable to the Support Services Manager. By working together you will ensure that a consistent, high quality support service is provided to deaf service users in their own homes, and that staff are supported to develop and maintain such a service.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

• To carry out the role of Support Worker in conjunction with the responsibilities detailed below.
• To actively monitor and develop individual and team performance by ensuring effective supervision and Performance Development Reviews/Reports (PDRs). This will involve travelling to supervise staff ‘on the job’ and to liaise with service users to monitor satisfaction and review support.
• Be responsible for any risk assessments at the service users home as part of your Health and Safety responsibilities.
• Be responsible for any audits of deaf service users finances.
• To provide clear direction, co-ordination, feedback, and day to day line management for the work of a delegated group of staff. Thus, ensuring their motivation to provide outcome focused, person centred services.
• To ensure that each service user has an assessment of need and an individual care plan and that these are updated and reviewed on a regular basis.
• To lead by example while delivering support, assessing risk to promote choice and independence, and where appropriate providing support with personal care and daily living skills.
• To work within a flexible rota, including evening and weekends to the needs of the service and any on-call duties as necessary.
• To identify and support participation in local and Deaf Community activities (i.e. recreational/educational opportunities.)
• To establish and maintain effective working relationships with a range of outside agencies and external stakeholders.
• Ensure service user confidentiality and compliance with Deaf Action’s Policies and Procedures and current GDPR legislation in all areas of work.
• To carry out such additional duties as appropriate, as and when requested by Management team