Job description
Are you motivated by supporting and helping vulnerable children?
Do you know your reasons for wanting to work in the SEND and Mental Health Sectors?
GSL are looking for Learning Support Assistants to support children with challenging behaviour profiles deriving from their possible difficulties in socialise, emotional and/or mental health difficulties/traumas. Some children/young people you will be supporting will have suffered adverse childhood experiences and you will help identify their risks and support their needs – escalating to a network of available senior staff members wherever necessary.
You will be joining a friendly, energetic, and creative team. Working within a children’s mental health, trauma and/or neurodivergent provision is incredibly challenging, together, we will qualify and disqualify the sectors for you, ensuring we are focused on the right ones for you.
Whichever route you choose, a passion to aid the learning of young people with SEMH through a range of creative, visual, practical and academic approaches is a must!
The school in East London are looking for graduates of social science, youth studies, psychology, criminology or similar but will consider non-graduates – as sincerity, compassion, enthusiasm and inspiration are regarded in equal measure.
The level of vulnerability of some of the children, when they trust you, will likely lead to them declaring personal information. Your reaction to such information is defined in the Keeping Children Safe in Education policy – you will need to be up to speed with these regulations and we can help you with this if required. Being ready to listen to your students as they declare just how they have been let down by the adult world, is a key aspect to building trust before you focus on their learning.
As a Learning Support Assistant at this school, you will have the opportunity to ‘get your foot in the door’ and work closely with the various therapists, enabling you to expand your knowledge, and skillset, and gain relevant practical experience - invaluable if you have ambitions to become a psychotherapist in one of the arts or speech & language.
Also, an ideal opportunity for aspiring Occupational Therapists, Educational Psychologists and Speech and Language Therapists.
A common feature for many children and young people with special educational needs is marginalisation and disadvantage, trauma, dysfunctional family relationships, low educational attainment, and stigmatisation. Subsequently, they face many barriers in life and are more 'at risk’ of negative outcomes. You will be instrumental in providing consistency, and equipping children and young people with tools to ensure they feel safe, secure, empowered, and believe that they can succeed in life.