Peer Support Worker

Job overview

• This is an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated & enthusiastic individual with lived experience of receiving care from mental health services and lived experience of complex emotional needs (often associated with the mental health diagnoses of BPD, EUPD or CPTSD).

The role will require you to draw on your own experiences, insights and skills developed through your own recovery to come alongside people using services. This will be on a one-to-one and group basis to explore people’s own goals & personalised recovery.

Please note that this is a specialised peer worker role and is not a general support worker role.

• There is a cap on this vacancy & when this is reached it will close.

Sheffield Health Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust is currently unable to provide sponsorship for this role. This is in accordance with UKVI guidelines and legislation, as these roles do not meet the skill nor salary threshold for sponsorship. If you hold a visa which allows you to work in the UK, you are welcome to apply for this role however our policy requires you to have at least 12 months on your visa at commencement of your employment for training and operational reasons. This means that you need at least 15 months right to work in the UK at the point of application to enable employment checks to be undertaken.

Main duties of the job

• To draw upon lived experience to enhance the approaches offered to service users to support their recovery
• Support people in their personal recovery by helping them to identify their strengths, values and aspirations
• Work with people in public places, and a range of community settings; building &maintaining safe and effective relationships
• Contribute to the collaborative planning and review of Recovery Support the use of psychological strategies: active listening, problem solving and coping strategies, support for self-management, self-help & self-care
• Help service users engage with and build connections & a sense of belonging to their local communities and meaningful activities
• To work as part of the team supporting the families or carers of service users
• To co-produce and deliver training & assist in the audit & evaluation of services provided
• Sheffield Health Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust is currently unable to provide sponsorship for this role. If you hold a visa which allows you to work in the UK, you are welcome to apply for this role however our policy requires you to have at least 12 months on your visa at commencement of your employment for training and operational reasons. This means that you need at least 15 months right to work in the UK at the point of application to enable employment checks to be undertaken. In order for your application to progress, where applicable you are required to supply your share code.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Working with service users and their families or carers:

• To draw upon your lived experience to enhance the approaches offered to service users to support their recovery.
• Build and maintain safe and effective therapeutic recovery relationships.
• Understand a person’s experiences in relation to their mental health
• Advocate for people to be treated with dignity and respect
• Act as a Named Worker for a designated caseload to ensure service users receive a consistent approach and a named person to contact. This will involve building a working relationship and to promote an individual’s ability to manage their own needs and independence. As a named worker you will work in collaboration with the Multidisciplinary team to support the overall care and treatment plan of the individual.
• Support service-user access to digital interventions/technology
• To work as part of the team supporting the families or carers of someone using services
• Understand a person’s coping strategies and strengths and support people to use these at times of distress or difficult
• To enable/assist/support service users to develop self-management of their condition taking an empowering approach to promote independence (‘doing with’ and empowering, ‘not ‘doing for’ people).
• To recognise the need to escalate concerns, informing others as appropriate.
• To report untoward incidents and areas of concern as soon as they arise
• Uphold principles/attitudes of anti-discriminatory views/beliefs encouraging inclusivity and challenging discriminatory attitudes/practices

Working with colleagues as part of a team:

• To work collaboratively with other members of the teams and to build and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues
• Adhere to working with the systems set and agreed within the Organisation to benefit the team process, individuals and service-users.

Co-produce therapeutic groups:

• To co-produce and facilitate therapeutic groups for service users designed to support their recovery including helping build their understanding and coping skills
• To assist in the audit and evaluation of groups

Co-produce staff training:

• To co-produce and deliver training (with team members and other Peer Support Workers across SHSC)

Personal responsibilities:

• Negotiation to working flexibly to ensure service needs are met, taking into consideration the job role and competency framework.
• At all times represent trust values, uphold credibility with the team, the wider health community and with external agencies
• Adhere to Trust standards of behaviour and expected performance

Administrative responsibilities:

• Be responsible for maintaining up-to-date daily records
• Adhering to information governance guidelines
• To encourage service-users voice to be heard throughout their clinical records

Service development:

• Contribute to/be involved in service development
• Participate in promotion of the team and PSW (Peer Support Work) to the directorate and wider trust
• Be involved in recruitment processes

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.