When the Toolkit Changed

Residential & Crisis Children's Support Worker

For most of my career, I'd worked in engineering.

There was usually a fault to find, a system to understand and a problem that could eventually be fixed.

Then I stepped into a completely different world.

As a Residential Children's Support Worker, there wasn't a wiring diagram to follow or an error code pointing towards the problem.

The most important tools I carried were very different:

Patience. Communication. Empathy. Resilience. Judgement. And the ability to stay calm.

It was one of the biggest changes of direction in my career, and one that taught me a huge amount about people.

Care Is Often in the Ordinary Things

Working in residential care meant supporting children and young people with everyday life.

And everyday things matter.

Getting ready for school.

Preparing meals.

Making sure healthcare and education needs were being met.

Spending time together.

Creating a positive bedtime routine.

Being there when somebody needed to talk.

On the surface, some of those things might seem small.

But consistency matters enormously.

My role was to help create a safe, nurturing and supportive environment where the children and young people in our care could develop, build confidence and have the opportunity to reach their potential.

Sometimes support meant doing something.

Sometimes it meant listening.

And sometimes it simply meant being there.

Safety Comes First

At the centre of everything was safeguarding.

I had a responsibility to uphold the safety and rights of the children and young people in our care while promoting both their physical and emotional wellbeing.

That meant working within clear regulatory frameworks, following guidelines and standards, and understanding the responsibility that came with the role.

There are jobs where getting something wrong is inconvenient.

There are others where the consequences can be much more significant.

Residential care taught me to appreciate the importance of process, accountability and good judgement, particularly when decisions affect another person's wellbeing.

Building Trust

You can't demand trust from somebody.

You have to earn it.

A huge part of my role involved developing positive relationships with children and young people through activities, everyday conversations and simply spending time together.

That required open communication and empathy, but also consistency.

That sounds simple.

In practice, it can be one of the most important things you offer.

The goal wasn't to swoop in and solve somebody's life.

It was to be a dependable, caring presence and support them as they developed their own confidence, independence and abilities.

Staying Calm When Things Aren't Calm

Residential and crisis support can involve challenging situations.

One of the most important things I learned was the value of remaining calm and resilient when the situation around you isn't.

Reacting emotionally rarely makes a difficult situation easier.

Listen.

Understand what's happening.

Communicate.

Consider what the person in front of you needs.

Keep everyone safe.

Then decide what needs to happen next.

Interestingly, there's a connection there with engineering.

The circumstances couldn't be more different, but the underlying discipline is surprisingly familiar.

Don't panic because something has gone wrong. Understand what's happening before deciding what to do.

Life Doesn't Work Office Hours

The job also meant working around the lives of the young people we supported.

That meant a flexible rota covering evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

Because a residential home doesn't close at five.

Meals still need making.

School still needs preparing for.

Bedtime still happens.

People still need support.

Care has to be consistent regardless of what day happens to be printed on the calendar.

A Very Different Kind of Responsibility

Moving from engineering into children's residential care might look like an unusual turn on my CV.

It was.

But I'm glad it's part of my story.

Engineering had taught me to solve problems.

Residential care taught me that not every problem is yours to solve.

Sometimes your responsibility is to create the conditions in which somebody else can grow.

To listen rather than immediately answer.

To support rather than take over.

To understand that behaviour can communicate something that words haven't.

And to recognise that how you make somebody feel can matter just as much as what you actually do.

People Before Processes

There are things from residential care that have followed me back into my technical career.

I'm more conscious of how people communicate when they're frustrated.

I'm more aware that there can be something underneath the problem somebody initially presents.

I understand the importance of psychological safety and giving people space to speak.

And I'm even more convinced that good systems should support people rather than make their lives harder.

That applies whether you're designing a field-service process, supporting an engineer who's having a difficult week or caring for a young person.

Processes matter.

Standards matter.

Technology matters.

But ultimately, they're there to support people.

No Multimeter Required

My time as a Residential Children's Support Worker took me far outside my technical comfort zone.

There were no circuit diagrams.

No diagnostic menus.

No replacement boards.

Instead, the job required something much more human.

Be dependable.

Be compassionate.

Communicate.

Stay calm.

Keep people safe.

And help someone move forward without trying to walk the journey for them.

It was a very different chapter in my career.

But looking at everything I've done since, particularly my interest in wellbeing, coaching, customer experience and designing better systems for people, it doesn't feel disconnected at all.

It feels like another piece of the same puzzle:

Understand the person in front of you.

Work out what they actually need.

And do what you can to make things better.