Residences Student Welfare Manager

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About us:

King's Residences is a department within the Estates and Facilities directorate at King's College London. Overseeing 14 Halls of Residences for around 6000 King's students, we are a dynamic and passionate team dedicated to ensuring the students receive the greatest living-in experience during their academic study.

About the role:

The main purpose of the Residences Student Welfare Manager role is to provide emotional support, signposting and guidance to our diverse community across our Halls of Residences. At any stage in their university career, students may experience a variety of complex problems relating to money, housing, and welfare issues for which they need practical support and guidance. Our work is to ensure that these do not become a barrier to our students success at King's and that through our residential pastoral support and collaboration with specialist student services teams at the College, our students thrive during their stay and academic studies. This role also works directly with the Residence Welfare Lead team, acting as a point of escalation and support for complex and high-risk cases that are not suitable for volunteer support. The role is also responsible for developing and implementing a robust welfare awareness programme within King's Residences, to improve accessibility for all students, so every resident has the opportunity to receive high-quality care and support during their stay.

This role is also responsible for the oversight and safeguarding of our Under-18 community within Halls of residences, including the direct line management of the U18s administrator. The U18s administrator is responsible for the daily monitoring of the ~300 Under-18 students living across Stamford Street Apartments and Great Dover Street Apartments.

This is a full time (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract. The role is Monday - Friday, with some evening and weekend work required at key points within the year.

About you: (the candidate)

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Educated to degree level in related disciplines and/or have relevant professional qualifications or significant relevant work experience with wellbeing, welfare or working within education.
2. We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience might include work in social work, youth work, mental health advice, or welfare advice. Relevant educational experiences might include higher education in a related discipline, professional qualifications, or other training.
3. Significant relevant work experience in supporting adults and young people to navigate substantial difficulties in an educational or community-based setting, including those with ongoing mental wellbeing concerns/mental health conditions and/or from complex family backgrounds.
4. A minimum of 2 years staff line management experience.
5. Strong understanding of the current context of pressures and concerns in relation to University students, and how to be an ally in navigating these, including those who are experiencing mental ill-health.
6. Ability to keep accurate administrative records and contribute to management reports, employing good IT skills.
7. Proven understanding of confidentiality and ability to maintain professional boundaries.
8. Strong interpersonal and communication skills (verbal and written), with experience of effectively dealing with individuals who are seeking help or advice with welfare and mental health difficulties.
9. Emotional resilience and ability to work calmly under pressure and contain anxiety in self and others.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience of working with young people leaving care, forced migrants, estranged students, young carers, student parents or disabled students.
2. Experience of completing risk assessments, ideally in an educational setting.

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click "Apply Now". This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.