Rostering and Handover

The home is staffed 24 hours a day 365 days a year including Bank Holidays, Christmas and New year by staff that are employed to work in the residential home. Staff are employed to work their contractual hours each week working a mixture of days, afters and occasional night shifts to support the children and young people residing in the home, whilst also providing consistency with the support they offer to the vulnerable children and young people. Some staff are employed as night workers and work between the hours of 10pm -7.30am to support the children and young people through the night should this be required.

The levels of staffing depends on the behaviours being displayed by the children and young people to ensure that they remain safe whilst also providing support to colleagues also working in the home. Staffing levels are agreed by the home’s manager to ensure the children and young people are safeguarded; this is reviewed on a regular basis and in line with the needs of the home.

Whilst it is important to provide support to children/young people in the home, the well-being of staff must also be taken into account when rotas are completed, as staff manage some difficult situations within the home and require time off to relax and recharge with family, friends, colleagues in order to reduce burnout occurring; this also helps to provide a high quality of care to the children/young people living in the home.

As part of the rotas that are completed, it is important to ensure that time is reflected for handovers to be completed between staff that have worked the previous shift and staff that have arrived on shift. This allows staff the opportunity to pass on information about the behaviours/interactions of the children/young people along with any safeguarding concerns or incidents that have occurred.

As part of the handover process it is important to ensure that all paperwork has been completed for the shift and that all information recorded has been signed off by staff and saved in the correct place for future reference should it be required. This should be completed by the identified shift leader.

During the handover a shift plan should be completed by the identified shift leader (Sleepin staff) that identifies work that needs completing during the shift and allocates time for staff to support children and young people to appointments if required, as well as time in the office to complete paperwork required.