Inpatient Social Worker

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust; Oxford; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a dedicated mental health Social Worker to join their vibrant inpatient team in Oxford. In this role, you will collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team to provide essential support to individuals facing severe mental health challenges. Your responsibilities will include promoting recovery, maintaining dignity, and assisting service users in building their support networks. The organization values work-life balance and offers numerous benefits, including career progression opportunities and a supportive work environment. If you're passionate about making a difference in mental health, this is the opportunity for you!

Benefits

27 days annual leave

NHS Discount

Competitive pension scheme

Lease car scheme

Cycle to work scheme

Employee Assistance Programme

Mental Health First Aiders

Staff accommodation

Networking and support groups

Qualifications

• Professional qualification in social work or equivalent is essential.
• Experience in community settings and mental health is crucial.

Responsibilities

• Support service users in recovery and independence.
• Assist in assessing and implementing care plans.

Skills

Community Support

Mental Health Awareness

IT Literacy

Stress Management

Team Collaboration

Education

Professional Qualification (Degree or equivalent)

Post graduate education in community care

Job description

Are you an experienced Social Worker looking for a new challenge?

We are a friendly and dynamic Inpatient Social Work Team in the beautiful City of Oxford looking for a mental health Social Worker to work in partnership with people who use mental health services. You will work alongside the multi-disciplinary team on the ward and wider adult mental health team to provide targeted support to people who live with severe mental health conditions.

Sometimes the work is fast-paced, and you may be working with situations that have high levels of complexity, risk, or vulnerability. You will be well supported by your colleagues and you will have monthly supervision. You will be a very important part of the mental health social work group and you will be invited to attend the monthly social work forum where our energetic collective meet to share ideas and talk about the messy stuff.

We understand the importance of work-life balance, so if you have other interests that you want to develop, then let’s have a chat to see how we can help you achieve a balance that works for you. Our diverse community would love to have you join the team, so get in touch for an informal chat.

Main duties of the job

The responsibilities of the role include, but are not limited to:

• To provide support and give time to an allocated group of service users in order to promote their recovery and maintain them in a community environment helping them to build their own support network.
• To provide regular and practical support to service users in developing and managing independence and maintaining dignity and self-respect.
• To support service users to identify their needs and to assist the mental health social worker to assess, plan, implement and evaluate individual care and support plans.
• To have the individual service user’s needs at the fore at all times and use agreed values and skills to underpin their day-to-day work.
• To provide support with daily living including self-care and home management e.g., budgeting, cooking, cleaning and shopping in line with the person agreed eligible needs.

The post holder will work within a designated inpatient area, supporting the adult inpatient wards within that area.

You will have to demonstrate the skills to maintain your Social Work professional identity when working within an inpatient environment.

Working for our organisation

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust provides physical, mental health, and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath, and North East Somerset.

Our services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics, and people’s homes, delivering care as close to home as possible.

Our vision is that no matter who you are or where you are, you will tell us that you receive: “Outstanding care delivered by an outstanding team.”

Our values are: “Caring, safe and excellent.”

At Oxford Health, we offer a wide range of benefits designed to support your career and wellbeing. These include:

• Excellent opportunities for career progression.
• Access to tailored individual and Trust-wide learning and development.
• 27 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days with continuous service.
• NHS Discount across a wide range of shops, restaurants, and retailers.
• Competitive pension scheme.
• Lease car scheme.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Mental Health First Aiders.
• Staff accommodation (please note waiting lists may apply).
• Staff networking and support groups hosted by our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

We hope that the advert has given you a clear understanding of the skills we are seeking and the opportunity at hand. You will need to use the “supporting statement” element of your application form to demonstrate your suitability for this role and you should refer to the job description, person specification, and the guidance notes attached to this role to help you tailor your application.

The essential and desirable criteria will be used to shortlist for interview and you should ensure that you refer to these within your application to increase your chances of being selected for interview.

Person specification

Qualification

Essential criteria

• Professional Qualification (Degree or equivalent).

Desirable criteria

• Post graduate education specifically relating to client group (Post basic qualification in community care/ research awareness/ management).

Experience

Essential criteria

• To have appropriate experience which should include community and working with mental health.

Desirable criteria

• To have appropriate experience of working with mental health.

Skills

Essential criteria

• To be IT literate.

Desirable criteria

• To be willing to learn new IT systems.

Personal Qualities

Essential criteria

• To be able to manage in a stressful working environment and with emotional or aggressive patients/or carers.

Desirable criteria

• Able to work within a multi-disciplinary team.

Other requirements

Essential criteria

• To comprehend and work within the Trust policies of data protection, equal opportunities, Health & Safety and to meet the diverse needs of patients.

Desirable criteria

• Car Driver.

All new starters have a thorough induction process, both local and Trust-wide, which aims to create a positive supportive working environment allowing new employees to learn key elements of their role over a reasonable timescale.

Appointment to this post is subject to the trust receiving satisfactory references covering 3 years of employment or study. Please ask your referees to respond promptly to reference requests.

We’re advocates of flexible working and many of our roles offer a range of employment options to help you balance your work and personal life.

Employees are expected to undertake mandatory and statutory training related to their role.

We are ambitious in our pursuit of excellence, driven by the belief that a fair, just, and fully inclusive organisational culture enables our teams to deliver the best quality of care and services possible and we work hard to ensure that our diverse workforce reflects the communities that we serve.

We welcome applications from all sections of the community, are an Equal Opportunities employer with a number of internal networking groups to support our employees and where possible will always look to make reasonable adjustments in order that you can fulfil the role to recognise your full potential. All our employees are committed to demonstrating through their behaviour our core values – safe, caring and excellent.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Oxford is a world-renowned centre of excellence for research. Oxford Health works closely with the University of Oxford department of Psychiatry and the Department of Primary care, has a Biomedical Research Centre dedicated to improving mental health and the NIHR Clinical Research Facility at the Warneford site. The Trust also hosts the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) which carries out applied research that directly impacts patient health and wellbeing.