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Job summary

Main area
Secure Division - Specialist Support Teams
Grade
Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
350-SC6453632
Employer
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Hollins Park Hospital,
Town
Warrington
Salary
£43,742 - £50,056 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
24/07/2024 23:59

Employer heading

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust logo

Highly Specialist Forensic Social Worker

Band 7

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Job overview

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to be part of a new service development in the Cheshire and Merseyside Region?

The Specialist Community Forensic Team have recently been commissioned to work   with key stakeholders and partner agencies to enhance community provision for people who are autistic or who have a learning disability. 

The Specialist Community Forensic Team are looking for Band 7 Forensic Social Worker complement the existing team.  Applications from enthusiastic and confident applicants who show a commitment to the wellbeing of service users and to delivering a high quality service are welcome.  Ultimately, the work of the team is focused on enhancing the safety, experience and wellbeing of service users in the community. 

The Specialist Community Forensic Team is a multi-disciplinary team consisting of Nursing, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational therapists, Social Work, Psychology and Psychiatry.  You will be expected to work in all areas of Cheshire and Merseyside and to liaise with a number of partner agencies including Health, Social Care and the Criminal Justice agencies to  assist the development of  proactive and preventative risk mitigation and support. 

Shortlisting planned for 26 July 2024

Interview date planned for 31 July 2024

Main duties of the job

The post holder will lead on consultancy issues relating to the complex social care needs of forensic clients of the Specialist Community Forensic Team across the Cheshire and Merseyside Region providing highly skilled advice and guidance to staff both for the Community Forensic Team and in the wider social care community within the requirements of legislation.

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

PRINCIPAL RESPONIBILITIES
1.Ensure an accurate comprehensive, holistic and up to date social history is available for each service user which offers complex formulations and recommendations.
2.Provide a highly skilled comprehensive assessment and social work service to people who have a Learning Disability and or Autism and complex needs.
3.When it is part of an agreed care plan, focused casework with individual service users using a range of interventions.
4. Work in partnership with service users and carers to assess and identify their needs and achieve service provision which is outcome focused and enhances their quality of life, independence and social integration.
5.Contribute to planning and development of future services by providing complex analysis and information to assist the multi-disciplinary team.
6.In conjunction with the responsible Social Services Department or NHS Trusts, assist in the assessment of suitable after care placements working across professional boundaries.

Contribute to multi-disciplinary teams and participate with members to develop care plans in line with specialist risk assessments and needs, taking into account the family and social context, requiring the exchange of highly sensitive information.
8.Assist in co-ordination of care in the context of different legislation with other professionals within forensic services by sharing expert knowledge and understanding.
9.To produce complex reports to reflect needs of individual service users and issues of risk, sharing highly sensitive information to support intervention and formulation.
10.Engage with service users and families to ensure they are aware of legal rights.
11.Work in partnership with users and carers to meet social care needs within a range of complex needs which arise out of offending behaviour.
12.Utilise the Electronic Patient Record for inputting assessment data, record social work input to the care plan and transfer summaries which reflect the patient’s views.
13.With the service user’s permission, initiate visits and maintain contact with service user’s families and/or significant others, offering support, information and, where relevant to the care plan, joint family and service user’s sessions.
14.Take a leading role in promoting anti-discriminatory practice in a way that links the service user’s individual circumstances to the broader social, political, legal and cultural context.
15.Undertake the role of appropriate adult under PACE 1984.
a.Attend supervisory and staff meetings
b. Complete professional training and development after development including that relating to post qualification as appropriate
16.Ensure that service users have access to independent advice on financial, legal and advocacy matters.
17.Take a lead role in Advocacy for the specialist community forensic team, providing training, delivery of policies and shaping the service to ensure advocacy is reflected throughout practice.
18.Take a leading role on child protection policies within the Specialist Community Forensic Team Support team ensuring effective collaboration with the wider health and social care community. This will involve the sharing of highly sensitive information with agencies, requiring tact and negotiation in agreeing appropriate action required.
19.Take a lead role in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults ensuring policies and procedures are in place within the Specialist Community Forensic Team and that service delivery compliments the wider health and social care community, linking with local safeguarding hubs, communicating highly sensitive information that requires tack and negotiation in agreeing appropriate action, as necessary.
20.Take a lead role on policy, procedure and service delivery in terms of working with MAPPA, Victim Liaison Services, and Domestic Violence and the National Probation Services ensuring effective collaboration and connectivity with the wider health and social care community.
21.Enable service users and carers to exercise their rights and promote their equality and diversity.
22.Link and maintain contact with statutory, voluntary, charity and external agencies to inform assessments and formulate detailed and complex care packages. Promote involvement of voluntary agencies to meet social care needs.
23.Participate in various multi-disciplinary groups in order to contribute to service governance and development within the workplace.The post holder will line manage support workers in the team.
25.Will contribute to research and training to other professionals from internal and external agencies utilising own knowledge base.
26.Liaise with the Specialist Community Forensic Team Operational Manager through regular meetings and supervision to ensure that social care needs of individuals are being appropriately addressed.

Please refer to Job Description and Personal Specification for further information. 

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Qualified Social Worker with current GSCC/HPC registration and professional relevant qualification recognised for the purposes of GSCC/HPC registration i.e. Dip SW, CSS, CQSW and Degree in Social Work
  • Post registration Masters in relevant area or experience and knowledge that is equivalent
Desirable criteria
  • AMHP
  • Practice teaching award
  • PQ/AASW
  • Forensic behavioural science

Knowledge

Essential criteria
  • Legislative Framework
  • Health Act. 1999, National Service Frameworks, Mental Capacity Act (2006), Mental Health Act 2007
  • Underpinning Knowledge and Understanding
  • Requirements of relevant legislation, Childcare legislation and criminal justice system, Care Programme Approach, Social work models in forensic work, Drugs, alcohol and substance misuse, Interaction between learning disabilities and offending behaviour within a family and social context
  • National and local policies
  • Models of risk assessment and risk factors and management, Financing of community care
  • Housing and welfare provision, roles, responsibilities of other agencies, Learning from enquiries’ reports, Role of Mental Health Review Tribunals, Victims
  • Theoretical models of forensic social work/forensic psychiatry/forensic psychology
  • Significant Post Qualification experience
Desirable criteria
  • Putting People First (DH 2006)
  • New Horizons (DH 2009)
  • Revised NHS Operating Framework 2010/11 (June 2010)
  • Transforming Care
  • Research methodologies
  • Forensic Mental Health
  • Approved Social Work
  • Multi-Disciplinary Work
  • Offence related work
  • Group work
  • Mental Health Social Work • (Community Mental Health Team), Continuing Care Team, Hospital Social Work Team, Emergency Duty Team, Child & Adolescent Mental Health Team, Probation Service)
  • Appropriate adult experience

Values

Essential criteria
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Accountability
  • Respectfulness
  • Enthusiasm
  • Support
  • High professional standards
  • Responsive to service users
  • Engaging leadership style
  • Strong customer service belief
  • Transparency and honesty
  • Discreet
  • Change oriented

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Experience of providing clinical supervision
  • A demonstrated understanding of Equality and Human Rights
  • Ability to work in a multi- disciplinary setting
  • Ability to apply social work practice in the framework of a non-medical model
  • Complex Risk Assessment & Complex Risk Management skills
  • Recording and preparing assessment and Mental Health Review Tribunal reports
  • Ability to travel nationally at short notice to complete assessments and visit families
Desirable criteria
  • Offence related work
  • Victim work
  • Advocacy work

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Veteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleCare quality commission - GoodArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardCTP The Ministry of Defence partnering with Right ManagementDisability confident employerCare Leaver CovenantStep into healthArmed Forces Covenant

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Chris Colwell
Job title
Operational Team Manager
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07386 652889
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