Waking Night Support Worker

Look Ahead Care and Support; Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames; On-site; GBP 14,000 - 17,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Leave up to 30 days

Pension 8%

Life cover

Rewards discounts

Blue Light Card

Induction & training

Cycle to work

Employee Assistance Program

Wellbeing resources

Staff awards

DBS (free)

Job summary

Look Ahead Care and Support is seeking a Waking Night Support Worker for its Kingston forensic mental health service. The role involves providing skilled waking-night support across the pathway, maintaining safety and relational security, and responding to emotional, mental health, medication and practical needs overnight.

The service opens in early 2027. The organization offers generous benefits, induction and training, and a focus on wellbeing and professional development.

Qualifications

• Experience of waking-night work with people with mental health or complex needs.
• Ability to stay alert, calm and to recognise deviations from a customer’s usual presentation.
• Confidence using de-escalation and escalation when risk increases.
• Good written recording and handover skills.

Responsibilities

• Maintain an active waking-night presence as part of a team.
• Provide trauma-informed and boundaried support to distressed customers overnight.
• Monitor risk, mental state, and environmental concerns overnight.
• Follow crisis and safeguarding plans and escalate as needed.
• Provide scheduled medication support within training and legal requirements.

Skills

Waking-night experience

Calm under pressure

De-escalation

Handover skills

Reliability

Forensic training readiness

Job description

Waking Night Support Worker

We're looking for a caring and compassionate Waking Night Support Worker to join our Forensic Mental Health service located in Kingston.

£15,400.00 per annum, working 20 hours per week.

Want to feel valued? You'll feel at home here.

Making you feel at home here means helping you thrive in every way. That's why we offer a wide range of benefits, award-winning Learning & Development and a culture that welcomes all. These aren't token gestures - we've thought long and hard about how best to support our team. After all, our people are doing something amazing: helping to transform lives every day.

• Annual leave increasing up to 30 days with length of service
• A generous pension - we will contribute up to 8% and life assurance cover up to 3x Pensionable Salary (T&Cs apply)
• Exclusive discounts and cashback via Reward Gateway and opportunity to buy a Blue Light Card
• Fully paid induction programme and further training
• ILM courses and Apprenticeship Programmes
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme for 24-7 confidential support
• Online wellbeing resources
• Quarterly Staff Awards to reward & recognise our amazing staff's commitment and contribution
• Free DBS

All applicants must be legally eligible to work in the UK by the start of employment as Look Ahead are not able to offer sponsorship.

The waking night support worker will provide skilled waking-night support across the pathway, maintaining safety and relational security while responding to customers' emotional, mental health, medication and practical needs overnight. The role also includes overarching health and safety responsibilities.

What you'll do:

• Maintain an active and visible waking-night presence as part of a team, with no lone support working in the service model.
• Engage customers who are distressed, unsettled or awake overnight and provide calm, trauma-informed and boundaried support.
• Monitor dynamic risk, mental state, missing episodes, visitors, environmental concerns and changes from usual presentation.
• Follow individual crisis, relapse, safeguarding, statutory and emergency-response plans and escalated concerns promptly.
• Provide scheduled medication support within training, competency and legal requirements.
• Respond to incidents using de-escalation and seek clinical, management or emergency assistance when needed.
• Complete agreed fire, health-and-safety and building checks.
• Maintain accurate contemporaneous records and provide detailed verbal and written handover to the daytime team.
• Participate in supervision, reflective practice and the same core forensic competency programme as daytime staff.

This is not an exhaustive list of all the duties and responsibilities that may be required from time to time and is subject to change in accordance with the needs of Look Ahead.

What you'll bring:

Essential:

• Experience of waking-night work with people who have mental health or other complex needs, or closely comparable work requiring safe decisions overnight.
• Ability to stay alert, observant and calm and to recognise when something is meaningfully different from a customer's usual presentation.
• Confidence using de-escalation, clear boundaries and prompt escalation when support or risk increases.
• Good written recording and handover skills.
• Reliability and sound judgement when immediate management presence is more limited.
• Willingness to complete the full forensic training and competency programme.

Desirable:

• Forensic mental health, statutory restrictions and public-protection arrangements.
• Relational security and formulation-informed approaches to behaviour overnight.
• Medication-support competencies where required by the service.
• SWLSTG/FOS out-of-hours pathways and service-specific emergency procedures.
• Fire Safety knowledge and experience

The service is anticipated to open on 4 January 2027, subject to contract finalisation, successful mobilisation and confirmation of operational readiness.

About us:

Look Ahead is a leading, not-for-profit care and support provider in London and the South East. Our vision is to build better lives through social care and housing in local communities. As an organisation we deliver over 100 services, providing support to thousands of customers each year. Our mission is to co-design and deliver services that offer innovative social care solutions and support people to thrive. We work across mental health, homelessness and complex needs, young people and care leavers and learning disabilities so there are plenty of opportunities to grow and progress your career with us.

• We focus on Excellence and innovation.
• We are Caring and Compassionate.
• We are Inclusive and Trusted.
• We work in Partnership and are One-Team.

Look Ahead is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults at risk, and expects all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment.

If your application for this role is unsuccessful, but we feel that you would be suitable for another role, we may contact you to discuss alternative opportunities. If this occurs you would not need to submit another application for the alternative role.

We reserve the right to close this advert early if we are able to appoint to the vacancy before the advertised closed date.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion at work and are accredited with Silver in the Inclusive Employers Standard 2021. We are a proud member of the Employers Domestic Abuse Covenant and encourage applications from a diverse range of applicants of all backgrounds.