Peer Support Worker

Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 25,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare organization in Birmingham is recruiting a Peer Support Worker to aid individuals with learning disabilities and/or autism. This role, part of a two-year project, requires lived experience of mental distress to provide empathy and support. Key responsibilities include motivating service users, assisting with care assessments, and promoting recovery pathways to enhance wellbeing. The organization values compassion and collaboration, offering generous benefits and professional development opportunities.

Benefits

Generous annual leave

Flexible working opportunities

Wellbeing support

Qualifications

• Personal experience of recovery and coping is essential.
• Ability to assist individuals with practical support related to mental health.
• Skills in motivating and inspiring individuals with complex needs.

Responsibilities

• Encourage and support people with multiple and complex needs.
• Assist in comprehensive assessments and care support.
• Help individuals transition from secure services into the community.

Skills

Lived experience of mental distress

Empathy

Communication

Motivational skills

Job description

Job overview

We are recruiting to a Peer Support Worker role within the West Midlands Learning Disability and Autism Community Forensic Service.

This service is being developed as a partnership between Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT) and Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT).

We are seeking applicants with lived experience of mental distress who can draw on their personal experiences to offer empathy, understanding, and hope to others. The role of Peer Support Worker has been developed specifically to ensure people with lived experience can inspire recovery and provide meaningful support.

This is a non-recurrent, two-year project funded via the Reach Out Collaborative, with the contract commencing upon appointment. This post is available as a fixed-term contract or 20-month secondment opportunity for internal applicants.

This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in supporting people with learning disabilities and/or autism who have forensic needs, reducing health inequalities and promoting recovery-focused outcomes.

Main duties of the job

• Encouraging, inspiring, motivating, and assisting people with multiple and complex needs who access the West Midlands Community Forensic LDA service.
• Working alongside the Band 7 Nurse Practitioner to support comprehensive and holistic assessments and contribute to care and support packages.
• Using lived experience of mental distress to build empathy and understanding, offering hope and supporting recovery.
• Helping people feel more in control of their lives by connecting them with practical support networks and supporting them to identify their own recovery pathway.
• Supporting individuals to transition from secure services into the community or least restrictive environments, reducing the number of people in specialist hospitals.
• Addressing health-related drivers of offending behaviours and supporting people across care pathways, organisations, and roles.
• Building links and liaising with external agencies to ensure collaborative, person-centred care.
• Ensuring the individual’s needs remain at the forefront at all times, working to the recovery model to support people in achieving their goals.

Working for us

At Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT), we deliver a wide range of physical, mental health, learning disability and autism services, and are proud to serve communities across Coventry, Warwickshire and beyond.

We put ‘people at our heart’; this ethos is at the centre of everything we do and how we do it. We care for our staff and colleagues as much as they care for others and offer a wide range of benefits and development opportunities. These include:

• generous annual leave entitlement which increases during your time with us
• flexible working opportunities
• excellent learning and development opportunities, including apprenticeship frameworks, distance learning, internal training, coaching and mentoring, and much more
• salary sacrifice schemes for lease car/ vehicle, Cycle to Work, home and electronics, gym membership and more
• discounts with a range of retailers, restaurants and entertainment venues through our Employee Assistance Programme and NHS discount schemes
• wellbeing support, including an in-house counselling service, external helpline and more
• staff networks and support groups.

We’re always on the lookout for people who share our passion for improving the lives and wellbeing of people in our community, as well as our values of compassion, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To share personal experiences of recovery and coping to build connection and provide support.
• To ensure that the person accessing the service understands and has a clear pathway of care across sector/agency boundaries with key contact points/named staff.
• To work effectively as a member of a team to engage individuals in a number of activities and engagement with services.
• To support people accessing services to identify their recovery pathway and ways in which they can achieve their own goals.
• To support the team in implementing care planned interventions, including those supporting families and carers.
• To provide practical support to people in developing and managing dignity and independence.
• To support people accessing services with issues around benefits, housing and welfare rights.
• To provide support with daily living.
• To support people where appropriate in accessing relevant physical health checks, investigations and interventions to improve physical health and well-being.
• To provide information on health promotion.
• To monitor individuals’ progress, level of functioning and mental state - alerting the West Midlands Forensic Community Service practitioners and other appropriate staff involved when concerns arise.
• To promote involvement within the service for the person accessing services and carer (friends and family).
• To maintain a flexible approach to encourage engagement.
• To gain advice and support when needed with team practitioners and team managers and attend regular supervision in accordance with Trust policy, to ensure care and safety is maintained
• To offer occasional input to lived experience forums within the local area to support shared good practice of your lived experience and professional role.