Job Purpose
This role sits within our new forensic Women’s Nova Roots service, which is a peer led service for women who are leaving forensic services, based in West London. The service will be open 3 days a week: one weekday evening out of hours and three weekends a month (flexible weekend pattern and times can be arranged).
The aim of the service is to support women who are leaving forensic care to re-integrate into society by offering a community social hub. The focus of the service is to provide social engagement, relaxation and a touch point for out of hours forensic support. The Women’s Hub will provide face-to-face holistic group support, offer psychoeducation and health workshops tailored and coproduced to the direct needs of clients, offer peer-led groups which will be co-designed and led by the clients accessing the hub. We will also offer a range of activities onsite.
Nova Roots will be an extension of the existing support offered by the Specialist Community Forensic Team (SCFT), offering out of hours social support. All referrals into the hub will be directly from the SCFTs and local hospitals.
The Nova Roots will be staffed with 1 part time Project Coordinator and 4 Forensic/Peer Led Volunteers – with Service Manager oversight. The Project Coordinator will work directly and closely with the SCFTs.
The Role
The role of the Nova Roots Project Coordinator is to arrange and coordinate a range of psychoeducation, health and peer-led workshops which will be delivered 3 times a week. The Nova Roots Project Coordinator will be responsible for managing the 4 peer-led volunteers and oversight of the site 3 days a week. The Nova Roots Project Coordinator will also be required to be in regular communication with the SCFTs.
The role will require hybrid working: onsite when the hub is open and 1 day of planning/coordination which can be worked remotely on a rota basis.
Key Responsibilities
* Providing a person centred and recovery orientated approach in all aspects of the roles and responsibilities.
* Promoting people’ rights and responsibilities
* Considering each person as an individual
* Working collaboratively with clients to understand their needs and developing flexible and realistic crisis support packages/person centred plans
* Understanding of safety planning
* Experience of working within forensic services
* Understanding and experience of challenges for forensic leavers (social, health, welfare, interpersonal)
* Experience with de-escalation, recognising and mitigating risks.
* Experience of working with those in crisis and challenging behaviour
* Listening to clients and encouraging positive steps towards self-management of crisis and recovery
* Understanding safeguarding adults and children processes and legal requirements
* Understanding of social issues such as debt, housing and welfare benefits
* Promoting people’ rights and responsibilities
* Providing advice, information, practical and emotional support to clients
* Proactively recognising the indicators of deteriorating mental health and facilitate appropriate action, whilst liaising with relevant agencies e.g., CATT, Emergency Duty Teams, CAMHS, Safe Space, SCFT etc
* Engaging with clients to show empathy, inspire hope and promote recovery
* Establishing supportive, empowering and respectful relationships with clients and carers/ family
* Maintaining accurate records, detailing interventions
* Ensuring that outcomes, outputs and impact are recorded
* Providing administrative and management support to the team
* Attend reflective practice, clinical supervision, peer supervision and line management supervision
* Create and maintain good working relationships with partner agencies
* Follow workplans
* Actively participate in training and development
* Provide and manage resources for clients and staff
Person Specification
* Minimum of 1 year working in forensic mental health services and with clients experiencing mental health distress, crisis and forensic/criminal backgrounds
* Experience of managing challenging behaviour and dealing with clients with complex needs
* Minimum 1 year of project coordination/management
* Experience of facilitating workshops/group sessions
* Experience of managing safeguarding risks and understanding legal requirements for safeguarding adults and children
* Evidence of continual professional development
* Understanding of the principles of trauma informed care
* Understanding of suicide prevention and safety planning
* Understanding of the relationship between mental health and social issues and how these issues may impact on physical, mental and emotional wellbeing
* Understanding of relevant legislation and policies
* Awareness of issues in mental health service provision
* A good understanding of mental health conditions
* Experience of working with vulnerable individuals
* Creative and flexible approach to working with individuals
* Ability to deal with stressful and difficult situations in a calm manner and de-escalate challenging situations
* Ability to prioritise and manage workload
* Ability to involve clients and carers in all aspects of work
* Empathy and non-judgemental approaGood communication skills
* Capacity to work within an agreed shift pattern
* Experience of delivering information and advice (housing, benefits, debt etc)
* Experience of non-clinical, therapeutic interventions like psychoeducation
* Good IT skills including Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint, with proven ability to input and extract information and produce reports
* Car driver with sole ownership of a vehicle and willingness to travel to locations would be desirable.
* Ability to work out of hours, during the day and on weekends
* Staff within this role will be considered key workers, so in the event of a government lockdown, staff will be expected to continue working
* Experience of working with vulnerable individuals
* Creative and flexible approach to working with individuals
* Ability to deal with stressful and difficult situations in a calm manner and de-escalate challenging situations