Residential Social Worker - Ayrshire

As a Residential Social Worker at Cross Reach, you will be based within one of our Residential Children's Homes, working directly with children and young people as part of the residential team. This is a hands-on role where you will build meaningful relationships, support daily routines, and respond to the needs of the home as they arise. Alongside direct care, you will apply your social work expertise to assessment, planning and decision-making.

You will use your experience to guide and support colleagues, modelling strong relational and trauma-informed practice. Recording and reporting are important elements of the role, grounded in your day to day involvement with young people and the life of the home.

The role

As a qualified professional, you'll be a strong, steady presence in the home, someone others naturally look to. You'll combine hands-on, compassionate care with confident leadership, setting the tone, guiding the team, and upholding the highest professional standards every day.

What your day could involve:

• Working directly with children and young people within the residential setting, building safe and trusting relationships
• Holding key-worker responsibility, including completing assessments, care plans and reports
• Leading practice on shift, supporting decision-making, risk assessment and problem solving
• Coaching and guiding colleagues, supporting the development of good relational and trauma-informed practice
• Contributing to child protection discussions and decisions as they arise
• Working closely with families, social work, education and other partner agencies
• Participating in looked after reviews, hearings and review meetings
• Helping maintain a stable, predictable and well-run home environment

About you

We're looking for a qualified Social Worker who is comfortable working within a residential setting and wants to remain close to practice. You'll bring experience, sound judgement and emotional resilience, and you'll be confident supporting both young people and colleagues in complex situations. This is a 24/7 environment, so you must be able to work shifts, including evenings and weekends, and value being part of a consistent team within the home.

You will work in a relational, trauma-informed way and be committed to reflective practice and continuous improvement.

What you will need

• BA Social Work or equivalent qualification
• Experience working within Children and Families services
• Registration with the SSSC and commitment to their Codes of Practice
• Ability to complete assessments, care plans and reports to a high standard
• Full manual driving licence and confidence driving pool cars
• Good IT skills, including Microsoft 365
• PVG membership or willingness to join
• Able to work flexibly across shifts including evenings and weekends.

Why join us

You'll join a team where relationships, consistency and good practice truly matter. You will be supported through training, reflective supervision and a clear practice model, and your professional experience will be recognised and valued. This is a role for a professional who wants to stay connected to young people while contributing directly to the quality and culture of care within the home.

If you think this could be the opportunity for you, we would welcome your application. If you have any questions and would like an informal conversation about the role, please email .uk.

Please note candidates who are successfully shortlisted, will be invited to a selection event on Thursday 26th March 4-7pm at Erskine Waterfront Campus, Erskine, Paisley

We also offer you a range of benefits that you would expect from an organisation that support others.

Firstly, there is access to a wide range of exclusive retail and leisure discounts through our rewards scheme and the Blue Light Discount card. We also ensure that your future and that of your loved ones is secured with a generous contributory pension plan and death in service benefit. Balancing work and family are made easier with our suite of enhanced family friendly policies and your health and wellness are prioritised with access to our health cash plan, giving you cash back for a wide range of health treatments.

We even have access to a care concierge service to assist you with life's challenges, providing invaluable support when you need it most.

But we also know that your training and development is important to you, and as well as a contribution to your professional membership fees, we are keen to support you in making the right steps to learn, grow and develop in ways that are right for you.

Cross Reach has been at the forefront of high quality social care for over 150 years, providing loving care to people of all ages and supporting them to live life to the full whatever their circumstances. During that time, we have worked hard to understand the needs of the people who turn to us for help and with them have been at the forefront of pioneering services which have literally changed thousands of lives for the better.

Today we are one of the…