Deputy Manager – Children’s Residential Home

A leadership role held from the floor. You would be on shift and in the room — leading handovers, steadying a difficult evening, and coaching colleagues in the moment rather than reviewing it with them a fortnight later.

The formal side is real: leading shifts, holding safeguarding standards, observing practice and feeding back on it while it is still live, and keeping records to a standard that would bear inspection. But the part that matters most is quieter. You would be the person who decides, by example, what is normal here — how an adult speaks to a child who has just lost their temper, what happens after a hard shift, and whether a colleague feels able to say they got something wrong.

THE CHARTER THIS ROLE IS HELD TO

• Lead from the floor, not from a distance.
• Model calmness before asking it of others.
• Respond to behaviour with curiosity before correction.
• Support colleagues without lowering standards.
• Protect culture on every shift.

WHAT YOU WOULD NEED

• Substantial experience in children’s residential care, and of leading a shift — with the credibility that only comes from having done the work on the floor.
• A working knowledge of the Children’s Homes Regulations and the Quality Standards — enough to lead practice against them on an ordinary Tuesday, not only to quote them at an inspection.
• The Level 3 Diploma in Residential Childcare, and the Level 5 for management either held or something you are ready to work towards — it would be funded and supported.
• A confident safeguarding practitioner: quick to notice, careful to record, willing to escalate without delay, and able to challenge a colleague or a professional when a child’s welfare needs it.
• The ability to turn trauma-informed, attachment-aware, PACE-informed and relationship-based practice into what actually happens at seven in the morning — not as theory, but as the way the house runs.
• Sound judgement in live situations: deciding quickly and proportionately when a shift is under pressure, saying clearly what you have decided, and leading behaviour support that stays relational rather than becoming a sanction.
• Emotional intelligence, and steadiness when a shift is going badly. The team will take its temperature from you.
• Professional curiosity: asking what a behaviour is communicating, and asking again when the first answer is convenient.
• A genuine appetite for developing other people — coaching in the moment, noticing where practice is drifting, and building the professional confidence of colleagues who may be newer to this than you.
• Welcome, but not required: experience of deputising or leading in a children’s home regulated by Ofsted, of registration or inspection preparation, and of working with autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, developmental trauma or exploitation risk.