Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen for someone with lived experience of eating disorders to join our community eating disorder service for adults as a Peer Support Worker.
Through sharing wisdom informed by lived experience and knowledge the post holder will: • Support and promote recovery as a user led concept • Emphasise hope and optimism, individual aspirations and goals • Value experiential learning • Focus on strengths rather than deficits • Foster collaboration between those who need support and those who support them • Enable and promote autonomy and self-management
Main duties of the job
The post holder will demonstrate an attitude which respects and values service users' and their carers and have a clear understanding of professional boundaries.
Duties of the role include:
To establish a supportive and respectful relationship with service users.
To help individuals identify their own achievable and meaningful recovery goals and set recovery objectives, drawing on your mutual resources as peers and utilising a range of recovery tools, techniques and experience.
To model personal responsibility, self-awareness, self-belief, self-advocacy and hopefulness via the telling of own recovery story to inspire and instil confidence in peers.
To share and promote coping, self-help and self-management techniques within the peer relationship.
To support service users to identify and overcome fears and within a relationship of empathy, trust and honesty, challenge negative self-talk.
To facilitate access to community groups and networks that enable service users to participate in community activities, in order to maximise opportunities for taking on socially valued roles and positive identity.
To accompany service users to appointments/meetings of their choice and perform a range of practical tasks, aligned to recovery goals.
Act as a positive role model showing professional and caring attitudes and behaviour towards other multi-disciplinary team members, service users and carers.
Have a focus on the rights of service users at all times.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Duties & Responsibilities: To establish a supportive and respectful relationship with service users. To help individuals identify their own achievable and meaningful recovery goals and set recovery objectives, drawing on your mutual resources as peers and utilising a range of recovery tools, techniques and experience. To model personal responsibility, self-awareness, self-belief, self-advocacy and hopefulness via the telling of own recovery story to inspire and instil confidence in peers. To share and promote coping, self-help and self-management techniques within the peer relationship. To support service users to identify and overcome fears and within a relationship of empathy, trust and honesty, challenge negative self-talk. To facilitate access to community groups and networks that enable service users to participate in community activities, in order to maximise opportunities for taking on socially valued roles and positive identity. To accompany service users to appointments/meetings of their choice and perform a range of practical tasks, aligned to recovery goals. Act as a positive role model showing professional and caring attitudes and behaviour towards other multi-disciplinary team members, service users and carers. Have a focus on the rights of service users at all times. Work in a way that acknowledges the personal, social, cultural and spiritual strengths and needs of the individual. Uses own initiative, personal experience and job-related training in deciding on the approach and interventions required when working with a service user in delivering peer support, although supervision is available. Attend multi-disciplinary team meetings to promote the use of self-directed recovery tools. Attend clinical review meetings to feedback progress on recovery goals. To raise awareness of recovery language with all staff and partners by modelling positive strengths based, non-discriminatory, non-jargon, non-medicalised language in all areas of work. Support other members of the multi-disciplinary team in promoting a recovery orientated environment and in identifying recovery focused activities imparting information/education as required. To provide a consultation point for colleagues and agencies regarding service user matters and the trusts values. Attend local and central team meetings to ensure the voice of service user experience is central to team culture. To meet with partner agencies to seek opportunities to establish new care pathways to clinical care and wider social support. To ensure effective communications of service user matters and promote the voice of service users in trust and team communications. To share ideas about ways of achieving Recovery goals, drawing on personal experiences and a range of coping, self-help and self-management techniques. To participate in quality assurance measures, promoting uptake of friends and family tests, satisfaction questionnaires and other measures that review the effectiveness of service delivery. Providing genuine constructive feedback and support for continued improvement of the service. Actively seek advice and recommendations from service users through a range of formats and developing appropriate responses to feedback. To participate in delivering service user perspectives in response to national guidelines adopted by the service. To undertake relevant training as available. To undertake all required mandatory training. To develop and maintain own knowledge and skills through the use of competency frameworks and continuous professional development (CPD) To participate in staff meetings, management and clinical supervision and any other identified professional forums agencies as required. To participate in the induction of staff and students into the work area. To participate in the support, education and training of less experienced workers and other professional groups i.e., police, offender managers. Provide evidence to support personal development in line with the Trust Appraisal process. Participate in regular supervision, engage in reflective practice and be committed to continued development. Develop own skills and knowledge and contribute to the development of others. Work towards standards which equate to NVQ Level 3 standards.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria Willingness to work toward attainment of NVQ 3 or equivalent in relevant subject
Desirable criteria Willingness to undertake further Training in line with the development of the RPSW role
Experience
Essential criteria Lived experience of mental health issues Experience of recovering a meaningful life Lived experience of eating disorders and recovery
Desirable criteria Experience of working in a team Experience of training, teaching, coaching/mentoring others Experience of using a range of self-management or recovery tools and techniques Experience of participation in service user involvement and consultation work. Experience of being supervised. Computer literate
Values
Essential criteria Continuous improvement Accountability Respectfulness Enthusiasm Support Responsive to service users Engaging leadership style Strong customer service belief High professional standards Transparency and honesty Discreet Change oriented Demonstrate a commitment to displaying trust values at all times
Skills
Essential criteria Good written, verbal and nonverbal communication skills Willingness to use the Trust IT systems. Able to relate to a wide range of people Knowledge and commitment to service users' rights Professional in appearance and behaviour Able to manage conflict and to help others to do so Ability to maintain a healthy home/work life balance Good team-working skills Willingness to reflect on work practice and be open to constructive feedback Ability to work in an enabling and creative way. Ability to manage stress and to plan and prioritise workload. Ability to carry out practical task
Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.
Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.
We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.
The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.
Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.
Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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.
Documents to download
Job Description & Person Specification (PDF, 176.5KB) OH Risk ID Peer Support Worker (PDF, 152.4KB) A Great Place to Work (PDF, 2.1MB) Our People Promise and Charter (PDF, 5.8MB) Employee Benefits (PDF, 950.7KB) Your Recruitment Journey (PDF, 62.3KB) Your Recruitment Journey (PDF, 62.3KB)