Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
CAMHs NCM Commissioning Hub - Family Ambassador
The closing date is 21 April 2026
Our role as Lead Providers for CAMHS Tier 4 services brings together the providers of CAMHS and Adult Eating Disorder services across the East Midlands to work together in a new partnership, to reduce delays, gaps in service and improve outcomes for the service users, their families and carers. Our Commissioning Team will lead and facilitate the quality oversight, case management, contracting, finance, business intelligence and organisational development to deliver new ways of working.
This role will be part of a wider team within the commissioning team who provide clinical assurance of the quality of the care provided for patients and they will look to manage individual patient pathways to ensure high quality services and care planning outcomes are achieved.
Provider Collaboratives delivering New Care Models are the vehicle for change in specialised mental health services, giving clinicians and managers in provider organisations the levers and financial incentives to enable service transformation for Children, Young People and their families.
Must be able to travel independently to other locations across the East Midlands Provider Collaboratives footprint as indicated.
Main duties of the job
As a Family Ambassador (East Midlands Region) you will ensure the needs and views of parents and families are heard and acted on by working within a designated Provider Collaborative (commissioned services across a number of providers). You will work within the Collaboratives wards/units for Children and Young People (CYP) inpatient mental health and learning disability settings. You will need to be confident, engaging and compassionate, able to extend warm and welcoming invitations to parents, advocates and families whose young people are admitted to your designated units.
This position of Family Ambassador will support the Quality & Governance Lead with a focus on coproduction and improving patient experience by supporting parents/carers in getting their voices heard and included in decision making within their young persons pathway. The family ambassador will champion parents/carers as partners in their young peoples healthcare needs. This requires occasional travel across the East Midlands region when meeting with families and young people.
Home working is applicable to this post. However, there is a requirement to attend onsite when required. We welcome applicants from any location as the base will be subject to where the successful candidate lives.
Base is TBC but within the East Midlands.
About us
NHFT is an integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools. We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
Person Specification
Skills & Abilities
* Evidence of good interpersonal skills and ability to form peer relationships with families/carers/parents and advocates.
* Ability to act calmly and to respond in a professional manner to distress and also challenging conversations with staff.
* Ability to see solutions rather than problems.
* Able to work on own initiative, organising and prioritising own and others workloads to changing and often tight deadlines.
* Ability to challenge issues relating to stigma, discrimination and non‑recovery focused practice in a respectful manner.
* Ability to work at pace in a busy working environment and able to multi‑task.
* Effective team player.
Knowledge & Experience
* Educated to NVQ 4 level in a relevant subject or equivalent level of qualification or significant equivalent previous proven experience.
* Has lived experience as a parent or carer of a young person who has required support and treatment across the Health, Social Care and/or Education system.
* Experience of working as part of a team, engaging and supporting others in a team and receiving supervision and instruction.
* Demonstrates knowledge of the mental health, learning disability and autism health, social care and/or education pathways through lived experience.
* Demonstrates understanding and experience in dealing with the public/families and carers and dealing with sensitive and confidential information; including the recognition of trauma and the impact on individuals.
* Experience of supporting individuals to access opportunities and support, ability to signpost to other services. Able to gather information from the local services and area to develop family/parent/carer/advocate resources.
* Experience of delivering support to peers in either a public sector, third sector or user/family led group.
* Commitment to and focused on quality, promotes high standards in all they do.
* Consistently thinks about how their work can help and support clinicians and frontline staff deliver better outcomes for patients.
* Values diversity and difference operates with integrity and openness.
* Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others.
* Consistently looks to improve what they do, looks for successful tried and tested ways of working, and also seeks out innovation.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer name
Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
J-18808-Ljbffr