Peer Support Worker

NHS; Knowsley; On-site; GBP 24,000 - 26,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity to join the NHS as a Peer Support Worker in a community eating disorder service. You will use your lived experience to support service users in their recovery journeys, fostering collaboration and promoting autonomy. The role provides a chance to inspire hope and self-management, contributing positively to the well-being of individuals with eating disorders.

Benefits

Flexible working requests considered

Qualifications

• Lived experience of mental health issues.
• Experience in recovering a meaningful life.
• Experience in using self-management or recovery tools.

Responsibilities

• Establish supportive relationships with service users.
• Model personal responsibility and self-advocacy.
• Facilitate access to community groups for social participation.

Skills

Good written communication skills

Good verbal communication skills

Ability to manage conflict

Team-working skills

Ability to relate to a wide range of people

Education

Willingness to work toward attainment of NVQ 3

Job description

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:o Support and promote recovery as a user led concepto Emphasise hope and optimism, individual aspirations and goalso Value experiential learningo Focus on strengths rather than deficitso Foster collaboration between those who need support and those who support themo 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.

About us

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.

Job 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

• Willingness to work toward attainment of NVQ 3 or equivalent in relevant subject
• Willingness to undertake further
• Training in line with the development of the RPSW role

Experience

• Lived experience of mental health issues
• Experience of recovering a meaningful life
• Lived experience of eating disorders and recovery
• 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.

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• High professional standards
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented
• Demonstrate a commitment to displaying trust values at all times

Skills

• 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

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.

£24,625 to £25,674 a yearper annum pro rata