Jobs

FAQs on Care Roles in ACS

Residential Posts – Don’t be put off by the title, you don’t live in!

Residential work involves working with adults with disabilities who live in both our accommodation and their own homes. Residents mainly need help and support in the morning and early evening. Many residents attend day services, college, volunteer work or employment so less staff support is needed during the day.
Weekend work is also required and at most places this means working every other weekend. You will also be required to work on Bank Holidays. We also require staff to sleep over, on an on call rota basis. You will receive an additional payment for this type of work.


1. What is the job like? What will I be expected to do?

Day Service Posts
Day Services work involves supporting and enabling adults with a range of needs such as older people with dementia, people with a learning disability, or people with physical or mental health needs. Increasingly, day services are also providing community access, this means that they support clients to access local amenities and services.
The role is to help people maintain their independence and lead as full a life as possible. Many clients live on their own, so social contact and outreach activities play a large part in the care programme of a client. Some clients require assistance with personal care.

2. What are the hours of the work? What time would I start/finish/have breaks?

This would depend upon the number of hours that are vacant in the establishment e.g. a full time vacancy or part time.
Day Services
Most services operate between 8.30am and 5pm. Occasionally you may be required to work evenings and weekends. Staff who work more than 6 hours a day are entitled to a thirty-minute lunch break.
Residential Services
In our Residential Units our staff work shifts covering a 24-hour period to ensure the right support is available. The morning shift usually starts at 7.30am and finishes at 3.30pm and the afternoon shift usually starts at 2pm and finishes at about 10pm.

3. How flexible can I be in emergencies, e.g. if my child is ill?

The County Council recognises that caring and parenting affects most employees at some stage. The Council is committed to helping its employees to find ways of successfully combining varied and often unpredictable caring responsibilities with their day to day work.
Whilst the needs of the service are paramount we do our best to be flexible and accommodate peoples needs.

4. What are the career development or training opportunities?

We are committed to you as an employee of HCC and therefore will give you all the support, encouragement and development you need to enable you to reach your full potential whilst giving the best possible care to the clients.
We offer a five -day induction to all new employees to help you settle in to the authority and find out everything you need to know. Once you start your job, we continue to support your training and development and help you provide the best service to our clients through a comprehensive package of training courses, e.g. Moving and Handling, First Aid, Food Hygiene, Medication Administration etc.
On top of this you receive a monthly one to one meeting in private to discuss how things are going from a line manager, a review each year (sometimes called an appraisal) and a personal development plan based on your learning and development needs.

5. What are the team working opportunities?

In both our day and residential units all of our staff work within a structured and supportive team environment. Daily staff meetings take place in most of our units and a senior member of staff will allocate your work to you. Most of your duties will involve working as part of a team (e.g. preparing activities for our day service clients, accompanying them on an outing etc).

6. What is the salary/pay?

• The salary for Day Services Support Staff (from October 2004) starts at £6.78 per hour approx, rising to £7.12 per hour after six months.
• The salary for Residential Support Staff (from April 2004) starts at £7.56 per hour, rising to £7.97 after six months.

7. How much annual leave would I be entitled to?

22 days per year rising to 35 depending on your grade and how long you have worked with us.

8. What other benefits do you offer, e.g. pension, etc?

You would be eligible to join the Local Government Pension Scheme which are contributory and employees contribute 6% of their salary and the employer contributes 17.1% of your salary. This means that for every £100 you earn, you pay £6 and the County Council pays £17.10 into the pension fund.
HCC also offers employees a number of voluntary benefits, e.g. childcare assistance, healthcare plan, travel insurance and gym membership.