Specialist Maternity Support Worker (Complex Needs and Safeguarding)

Job overview

The Specialist Maternity Support Worker (Complex Needs and Safeguarding) plays a key role within the maternity team, providing compassionate, trauma-informed support to women and birthing people with complex health and social needs. Working across community and hospital settings, the post holder supports antenatal and postnatal care, collaborates with multidisciplinary and safeguarding services, and helps families access appropriate support, ensuring safe, personalised care for those experiencing complexity and vulnerability in the perinatal period.

Main duties of the job

As a vital member of the maternity team you will assist in providing antenatal and postnatal care to women  with complex health and social care needs.  Care takes place in a variety of settings, including home visits, clinics and community settings; alongside the acute maternity unit.

The post holder will liaise with services and agencies to enhance the care and support provided to women and their families.  They will act as a point of contact for support and signposting, offering advice, high-quality information and guidance on safeguarding and early help support to both staff and service users.  Working as part of team providing additional support to families with multiple disadvantages, complex needs and safeguarding involvement, the post holder will focus  on the perinatal period.

The post holder will be expected to liaise closely with other professionals in the multi-disciplinary team, within maternity services, children’s services, early help teams and other support agencies and community groups, taking a ‘think family’ approach to work in restorative partnership with families.

We are looking for an individual who is compassionate and non-judgemental with excellent communication skills and the ability to build positive therapeutic relationships with families.

The individual will need to manage their own workload, have excellent organisational skills, use initiative to make informed decisions and be able to navigate competing priorities.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Communication and working relationships

• Communicate clearly and effectively with the multi-disciplinary team, women and their families/visitors/carers
• As a key member of the maternity team supporting families with complex needs, you may be required to attend multi-agency meetings and work co-operatively with the multidisciplinary team to ensure patient safety and care.
• Respond appropriately to safeguarding queries, including supporting staff with immediate safety planning and advice on safeguarding referrals.
• Take telephone calls and high light cases for escalation to the midwives.
• Build excellent, therapeutic relationships with families to provide support and care in distressing and emotional events.
• Maintain confidentiality.
• Maintain professional boundaries when working with the public.
• Demonstrate honesty and integrity
• Recognise the importance of people’s rights and recognise individual beliefs, preferences and choices; respecting diversity and providing individualised care.
• Able to travel to different locations where required – you will need your own car.
• Ability to deal sensitively with complex and difficult emotional circumstances.
• Recognising your own limitations and accessing further support as required.
• As a key member of the safeguarding and public health team you will work regularly with families experiencing multiple disadvantages (insecure housing, substance misuse, domestic abuse, contact with the criminal justice system) and children open to Early Help, Child in Need and Child Protection Plans.
• You may be required to contribute to multi-agency meetings and work co-operatively as part of the multi-disciplinary team to ensure patient safety and care.
• To take emergency action as necessary to safeguard women and babies including calling emergency services, supporting in clinical emergencies.
• Maintain high levels of written documentation and prepare reports for the purpose of safeguarding meetings.
• Take responsibility for participating with regular safeguarding supervision
• Support the midwifery team for women and birthing people who present in hospital with complex social support needs to identify and signpost to relevant services.
• Support service users who may require support with attending the hospital environment for planned wellbeing tours of the unit.  Support with identifying reasonable adjustments to improve accessibility to maternity care.

Support with birth planning and hospital passports

Planning and organisation

Physical skills

Patient and client care

Policy and service development

• Undertake daily identified administrative and clerical tasks associated with maternity care which facilitate the smooth running of the service/
• Assist with preparation and organisation of a variety of antenatal/postnatal and specialist clinics.
• Arrange appointments, scans etc with the support of midwives
• Transport specimens from the community to hospital setting as required.
• Support maintenance of data collection for audit and reporting purposes.
• Undertake social media posts for public health awareness
• Venepuncture
• Basic observations
• Routine neonatal care
• Newborn blood spot screening
• To provide trauma-informed, compassionate care and support to families.
• To be able to have challenging conversations in a calm and supportive way, with an awareness of trauma-informed practice.
• Assist parents with personal baby care – eg helping them to become confident in changing nappies, bathing their baby and performing eye and cord care.
• Assist with infant feeding including advice and practical breastfeeding support that meets our UNICEF Gold Baby friendly standards.
• Demonstrate the principles of sterilisation and safe preparation of artificial infant milk.
• Undertake parenting and infant observations on a 1:1 basis or with other professionals.
• To support and signpost/refer women and their families to access appropriate services and community support organisations such as drug and alcohol services, mental health team, domestic abuse support and family hubs.
• To undertake home visits, both jointly and independently, and where required accompany to appointment with other agencies/community groups to provide initial support to access services.
• To devise support plans, support with reasonable adjustments and escalate concerns as appropriate.

Engage in QI projects and service improvement to develop new job role

Finance, equipment and other resources

People management and training

• Use Trust resources efficiently and suggest efficiency savings to more senior staff when appropriate
• Undertake annual mandatory training
• No management requirements

To be involved in practice awareness raising sessions in the Trust and to reinforce the training provided to staff by the Public Health Midwife and Safeguarding Midwife.

Information technology and training

• Undertake daily identified administrative and clerical tasks associated with maternity care which facilitate the smooth running of the service/
• Daily use of electronic patient record

Use spreadsheets to collect data for audit

Research and development

Support with service audit

Freedom to act

• Line managed by Specialist Public Health Midwife
• Midwifery staff will identify service users who require support and refer these to the postholder.  However, the post holder will also be expected to recognise families who have support needs and act accordingly.
• Regular review of case load with manager

Will not be expected to make safeguarding referrals – to escalate safely to midwives if and when safeguarding concerns are recognised.

Please note:

Priority will be given to applicants with recognised 'Priority' or 'At Risk' status, including NHS staff identified across Devon.