Care Coordinator - Early Intervention in Psychosis

Job overview

*When applying for this job, please ensure that you detail in your application how you meet the essential criteria as outlined in the attached job description*

Job overview

The Southwark Team for Early Psychosis (STEP) are pleased to be looking for a highly enthusiastic and dedicated fulltime care coordinator (occupational therapist, nurse or social worker), who shares our passion for supporting people experiencing psychosis using a holistic approach.

About the location:

Our office and team base are at a community outpatient’s clinic at St Giles House, 1 St Giles Road, Camberwell, SE5 7UD. The office is a short walk from Denmark Hill  station.

STEP is currently under-represented in terms of staff from Black and Ethnic Minority backgrounds, and we would strongly encourage people from these backgrounds to apply. Successful applicants will be selected on merit; however, we are committed to using Positive Action to increase the diversity of our workforce. We also strongly encourage applications from people with lived experience of mental health challenges. We see this as valuable experience and recognise the necessity of including people with lived experience in our service.

We also strongly encourage applications from people with lived experience of mental health challenges. We see this as valuable experience and recognise the necessity of including people with lived experience in our service.

Main duties of the job

The main role of a STEP care co-ordinator is to support a caseload of around 20-25 service users who are experiencing first episode psychosis. Care coordinators use their skills, experience and knowledge to support service users to achieve the goals that are important to them and move forward with recovery as they see it, working with clients to identify and use early warning signs, to enable early detection and intervention. We are very encouraging of Care Coordinators expanding the therapeutic interventions they are able to offer by attending accredited training.

This role includes:

• Assessing service users who are newly referred to the team
• Managing a complex caseload of allocated service users
• Working with service user’s families and other people in their networks
• Working with the multi-disciplinary team to plan and implement care packages
• Undertaking the role of duty worker

We value our care coordinators and appreciate the importance of investing in staff. Newly appointed care coordinators will have the opportunity to take part in early intervention training, family intervention training and other training opportunities as and when the opportunity arises. We are always open to considering new training opportunities for staff, and if there is an area of training you are particularly interested in, we welcome you to discuss this with us to see how we could provide support.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

STEP is a borough wide community service working in Southwark with people experiencing first episode psychosis. We are a cohesive and supportive team that enjoy working with each other, and we are looking forward to welcoming more enthusiastic and passionate colleagues.

The team is part of the research based Early Intervention Model and works intensively with service users and carers for up to three years, promoting social inclusion and recovery. The team consists of professionals skilled in supporting people experiencing psychosis and includes peer support workers, care coordinators (occupational therapists, nurses and social workers), psychiatrists, psychologists, vocational and employment specialists, and an admin team.

We are passionate about supporting people with psychosis and use a holistic approach and psycho-social interventions to do so.  We pride ourselves on being an innovative service and use creative approaches to try and meet the needs of the diverse community that we serve. This includes using the Tree of Life Approach, recovery stories, the Power Threat Meaning Framework and the Open Dialogue approach.

Please ensure that you use the personal statement to explain how you meet the job specification attached.