Chaplain

Job overview

To respond to the diversity of pastoral needs in the hospital community with sensitivity and compassion, demonstrating quality of care for persons encountered.

• To enable the Chaplaincy Service to deliver high quality pastoral, religious and spiritual care across mental health and learning disability inpatient units in Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.  •    To support the visibility of the Chaplaincy service as directed by the Lead Chaplain ensuring that clinical contact with patients and staff is prioritised.  •    To support the Lead Chaplain in leading a multi-faith and ecumenical team of both ordained and lay people; co-operating with each other to provide a flexible and responsive service of pastoral, religious and spiritual care to patients, relatives and staff of LYPFT. •    To take a lead role where directed in identifying and implementing strategic development and service change within the service to meet the needs of patients, relatives, volunteers and staff.

Main duties of the job

This Band 6 Chaplain post is an autonomous, senior clinical role providing specialist spiritual, pastoral and religious care to patients, families and staff across mental health and learning disability services. It combines direct clinical work, service development, education, and leadership within a multi faith, multi disciplinary context. Core clinical responsibilities The chaplain provides regular ward and departmental visits, offers 1 1 and group support, and responds to complex spiritual, emotional and ethical needs, including in crisis, end of life and post incident situations. They undertake and document specialist spiritual assessments, contribute to MDT care planning and risk discussions, and design and lead worship, rituals and reflective events appropriate to mental health and learning disability settings. Knowledge, professionalism and autonomy The role requires in depth knowledge of one’s own faith/belief tradition, a good understanding of other faiths and non religious worldviews, and specific study and experience related to mental health and learning disability. The postholder works largely independently within NHS and CPCPC frameworks, prioritising complex referrals, making day to day clinical decisions, and either holding or actively working towards CPCPC registration with evidence of ongoing CPD. Communication, staff support and leadership.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To carry out any other work as directed by the Lead Chaplain or the Patient Experience and Involvement Lead.  •    To provide spiritual, pastoral and religious care for a highly diverse population in which Christian and ‘no religion’ identities are largest, with smaller but important Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, Buddhist and other communities. •    To help ensure equitable access to chaplaincy for non religious people and minority faith groups, addressing current under representation in referrals. •    To lead and support initiatives to improve the recording and clinical use of religion / belief information and to embed chaplaincy in mental health pathways.

The chaplain uses highly developed communication skills to engage with people in distress, explain complex spiritual and ethical issues, and influence multidisciplinary practice. They act as an initial resource for staff support (1 1, reflective practice, debriefs), model compassionate communication, contribute to staff training, and take delegated leadership for particular areas, projects or workstreams.

Service development, governance and education Working with the Lead Chaplain and Patient Experience leads, the postholder helps design, implement and review chaplaincy strategies, policies and quality improvement initiatives. They share responsibility for data collection, audit, research and evaluation to evidence impact, and contribute to teaching, training and research across the Trust, positioning chaplaincy as an ethical, theological and pastoral resource.

Practical, emotional and environmental demands The role involves moving across multiple sites, using IT systems and working flexibly, including in challenging, sometimes distressing environments such as acute wards, PICU, forensic and LD settings. The chaplain manages sustained emotional and mental effort - frequent exposure to distress, trauma, bereavement and disturbed behaviour - supported by regular supervision, reflective practice and team meetings to maintain resilience and safe practice.

We recruit people based on their values and qualifications (where required) and believe that their lived experience is an advantage, this means that together we are as diverse as the communities we care for. Simply put, when we employ caring people who act with integrity and have the right skills, we can give those with mental health challenges, learning disabilities and neurodiversity high-quality care and support to live fulfilling lives, and make our staff feel purposeful, happy and valued. All our information is available in accessible formats. Please contact the Recruitment team [email protected]  Attached to this advert is our candidates guide to values-based recruitment and supporting guidance on how to make a successful application.  If you require a reasonable adjustment, please contact the Recruitment Team or see the attached candidate guide to reasonable adjustments.  To find out more about the key responsibilities and the specific skills and experience you’ll need, look at the Job Description & Person Specification attachments under the Supporting Documents heading.  So that you’re even more equipped to make an informed decision to apply to us, you’ll need to take time to read the Candidate Guide to Values Based Recruitment. This document provides you with information to help you apply.