Staff development

Setting up your career

Everything we do is about creating brighter futures – and this applies to our staff too. We work together with you on a development plan that brings out your best.

When you first start working at St Christopher’s, you’ll go on our nine day introductory training course. The programme combines elements of social pedagogy and children’s residential training that make our approach so different. Training is split into manageable chunks so that you have the opportunity to try something out in practice, reflect on its impact and refine your skills.

I have already taken some of the learning into my various roles and it has benefited me in a multitude of ways.

Career progression

Funding is available for you to complete your Level 3 or 5 Diploma for Residential Childcare and you can apply for further support if you would like to complete other training.

The annual appraisal process empowers you to highlight areas where you would like progress and identify any training needs that will help you reach your goals. You can receive performance-based rewards through our review process.

Our monthly newsletter, the HR Grapevine, with updates about staff moves, appreciations and other career opportunities.

Reflective practice is a big part of how we work. Your team meetings and monthly supervisions with your manager are structured with learning at the heart. This means you’ll always have the chance to learn from your colleagues and share your experiences too.

Your voice is heard

St Christopher’s is a creative and learning organisation. We value what our staff have to say and provide lots of genuine opportunities to give feedback on the way things work. This is evident through our young people’s participation programme and through our commitment to consulting staff.

Our directors and trustees are hands-on in their roles. They run the St Christopher’s Welcome, an induction session for new staff, and regularly visit services to chat to people about their work. They even work shifts alongside operational staff so they can find out about the experiences of colleagues from all parts of St Christopher’s.

Each year we organise staff conferences so you can hear about what has been happening in the last 12 months and suggest what we could do next. Different departments run surveys on their performance so you can share your experiences, and our annual staff survey enables you to have your say on the organisation as a whole.

You will have the opportunity to represent your service through our Brighter Futures Groups. These groups run quarterly regional meetings, where staff meet to share ideas about how St Christopher’s can improve and grow. They feed back to directors and trustees and play a real part in shaping our future.

Taking the next step

As St Christopher’s provides such a variety of services, there are frequent opportunities for promotion or to sidestep into different areas of the organisation. A high proportion of our managers are “home-grown”– they started as Children’s Residential Workers or Support Workers and now have leadership positions.

• 82% of team leaders and managers in 16+ services are internal promotions
• 73% of all our team leaders, deputies and managers are internal promotions
• Up to 19 days training in your first year