Deaf Peer Support Worker

Job overview

We are seeking a Deaf Peer Support Worker to join our team, with a dedicated focus on supporting deaf individuals who experience mental health challenges. Deaf Mental Health Services is a specialist provision offering tailored support to people who are deaf and require mental health care that meets their communication and cultural needs.

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Adult Mental Health (AMH) Deaf Service for a Deaf Peer Support Worker. In this role, you will be part of a multi-disciplinary team based at the Stonebridge Centre, with responsibilities that extend across Nottinghamshire.

As part of your development, you will be required and fully supported to complete the Peer Support Foundation Training shortly after your induction. You will also have access to regular peer-informed supervision, alongside the standard supervision and support available within the wider team.

Main duties of the job

This role plays a vital part in reducing stigma, promoting inclusion, and ensuring that the voice of lived experience shapes the development and delivery of mental health services.

Key responsibilities include:

• Supporting individuals to identify, define, and work towards their personal recovery goals, using a strengths‑based and person‑centred approach.
• Helping service users prepare for appointments, ensuring they feel confident and informed, and supporting them to process information afterwards.
• Promoting self‑advocacy, empowerment, and recovery‑focused approaches, enabling individuals to take an active role in their care.
• Drawing on your own lived experience to offer understanding, hope, and practical guidance in a safe and professional way.
• Working in line with the Peer Support Worker Competency Framework, ensuring high standards of practice, professionalism, and peer‑informed values.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Experiencing mental distress can be isolating and overwhelming, particularly for deaf individuals who may also face communication barriers, cultural misunderstandings, or stigma within their communities. The Deaf Peer Support Worker role has been developed specifically for people with lived experience of both deafness and mental distress. By drawing on this unique combination of experiences, Deaf Peer Support Workers offer empathy, cultural understanding, and hope demonstrating that recovery is possible.

In this role, you will provide peer support alongside practical assistance, helping people regain control of their lives and shape their own recovery journey. Through relationships built on mutuality, shared experience, and accessible communication, you will promote choice, self‑determination, and opportunities for meaningful connection within local deaf and wider communities.

You will also act as a recovery champion within the team and an ambassador for recovery‑focused practice across the Trust and partner organisations. As part of the developing peer workforce, you will be encouraged to invest in your own personal and professional development and contribute to the ongoing growth of peer roles within the Trust.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish supportive, culturally informed relationships with deaf people using mental health services and their families, grounded in the core principles of peer support (mutual, reciprocal, strengths‑focused, safe, progressive, non‑directive, recovery‑focused, and inclusive).
• Share your own lived experience of deafness and mental health recovery to build trust, connection, and understanding, while maintaining professional boundaries.
• Use active listening and accessible communication methods (including BSL or preferred communication modes) to help individuals develop self‑understanding and identify their personal recovery goals.
• Support people to work towards the goals they have identified for themselves, offering encouragement, practical guidance, and hope.
• Role‑model recovery, personal responsibility, and self‑awareness, demonstrating that positive change is achievable.
• Promote recovery‑focused and inclusive language across the service by modelling strengths‑based, non‑discriminatory, non‑medicalised communication in all interactions.
• Champion deaf awareness and culturally appropriate practice, helping colleagues understand the experiences, barriers, and strengths within the deaf community.
• Work collaboratively with the wider multi‑disciplinary team, contributing a lived‑experience perspective to service development and delivery.
• Maintain clear, strengths‑focused clinical records, ensuring accessibility and accuracy.
• Work in line with the Peer Support Worker Competency Framework, upholding the values and standards of peer practice.

Please note applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment. The cost of the DBS application is £20.00 (standard) or £41.00 (enhanced), this cost will be deducted from your salary over the first 2 months of employment.

You are encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service. An annual fee of £15 per year applies.

Applicant requirements

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.