Job summary
- Main area
- Adult Mental Health Services
- Grade
- Band 3
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 30 hours per week
- Job ref
- 267-OA6450884
- Employer
- Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Littlemore Mental Health Centre
- Town
- Oxford
- Salary
- £22,816 - £24,336 per annum/pro-rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 04/08/2024 23:59
Employer heading
Peer Support Worker Apprentice - Ashurst PICU Ward - Oxford
Band 3
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has been rated as Good by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
We are a responsive and innovative Foundation Trust that places our values of Caring, Safe and Excellent at the heart of everything we do. We take great pride in our staff and believe that investing in you is key to us achieving our vision of outstanding care delivered by outstanding people.
We work with a wide range of partner organisations to deliver care and support to people in their own homes and from a number of hospitals and community bases. We focus on delivering care as close to home as possible for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.
Job overview
Do you have prior lived experience of ill-mental health, either yourself, or as a carer?
This post is recruiting for a Peer Support Worker within the Oxford Health Oxfordshire Adult Mental Health Service.
Peer Support Workers (PSWs) are people who have their own lived experience of mental health challenges or have supported/cared for someone with mental health challenges. They use empathy informed by their own experiences to support service users/families who are accessing mental health services.
We’re looking for people who are compassionate, can work well in a team, highly motivated and have excellent written and verbal communication skills. You will be provided with training for the role and given the opportunity to complete the national recognised care certificate.
Is this right for me?
If you are thinking of applying, The Trust strongly recommends attendance at one of the Peer Support Worker online information sessions. These sessions will help you understand more about the role so you can make an informed decision if the job is right for you.
There are two dates to choose from:
Thursday 25th July 12.30pm-1.30pm MS Teams
Wednesday 31st July 5.15pm-6.15pm MS Teams
Booking is essential. Please email: [email protected] and state which session you would like to attend. Please note if you do not register your attendance in advance you will not be sent the meeting link.
Main duties of the job
The peer support worker role sees the introduction of lived experience into everyday practice. PSW’s offer a combination of group and one to one work and will work within the multi-disciplinary team to support a service users recovery journey. The post holder will facilitate formal and informal learning, working with staff in clinical practice and supporting clinical teams to develop recovery-based practice.
The core function of this post is to offer peer support to service users within an acute mental health ward. The peer support worker will demonstrate best practice in relation to the application of recovery principles to practice. Peer Support Workers model the recovery principles together with personal responsibility, self-awareness and self-care whilst undertaking the duties of the role.
Please see attached document regarding the eligibility criteria for this role and ensure you have read this carefully.
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
Please note, applications for this role close on Sunday 4th August. Interview dates will take place between Wed 28th August – Fri 2nd Sep 2024
Ashurst ward is an 11 bedded male Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit for those who have acute or severe and enduring mental illnesses, often with co-morbidities, which require treatment which would otherwise not be able to be given in the community or acute ward environment.
Ashurst Ward aim to provide the most intensive nursing care and proactive and effective treatment to promote service users to recover and return to their usual place of residence.
Working on Ashurst Ward is rewarding but comes with its challenges. Those working on Ashurst Ward are expected to have skills in de-escalation, quick decision making and awareness of basic symptomatic features of illness. Ashurst is fast paced, dynamic and high in engagement and provides the opportunity to really make a difference to those under our care.
The role of a peer support worker will involve building therapeutic relations with patients, co-ordinating group activities and becoming part of the multi-disciplinary team.
Oxford Health offer the Peer Support Training programme as a nationally recognised accredited Level 3 Apprenticeship (fully funded by Oxford Health).
The Peer Worker Apprenticeship is completed over a period of 15-19 months depending on whether a Peer Support Worker works part time or full time (22.5-37.5 hours).
Eligibility criteria to enrol on the Apprenticeship includes having GCSE/Level 2 Maths and English qualifications. You will be expected to provide evidence of these qualifications. If you do not have these qualifications, we would still welcome your application for consideration, but you would need to complete The Trust’s functional skills courses on Maths and/or English whilst in the role before enrolling on the Apprenticeship. All new Peer Support Workers will be provided with training for the role and support from a tutor and supervisor within their working hours.
Lived experience:
- Drawing on lived experience of mental health to provide emotional and practical support to an allocated group of service users to promote their recovery. This may include avoidance of admission and/or promoting recovery for inpatient’s by helping them to identify and build their own support network
- To support service users to engage effectively with care being offered and access appropriate services
- Drawing upon lived experience & using active listening to inspire hope, offer empathy, empowerment, confidence building & validate a service users’ feelings
- To build relationships that are founded on the value of mutuality which will facilitate the provision of regular and practical support, both one to one and via group facilitation, to service users in developing and managing independence and maintaining dignity and self-respect
- Where appropriate challenge discrimination and reducing the stigma of mental ill health.
- To positively promote independent living of service users through role-modelling individual recovery journeys
- To have the individual service user’s needs always at the forefront of the PSW’s practice and to use the skills incorporated in the Peer Support Training to underpin their practice
- To build rapport with service users, whilst maintaining professional boundaries, drawing on both experience and knowledge of the service user perspective and an evidence-based approach.
Person specification
Experience
Essential criteria
- The ability to offer specialist support using their personal experience of recovery
Desirable criteria
- To have experience of working within a supportive and enabling role
Personal qualities
Essential criteria
- Able to use own initiative when appropriate
- The ability to develop and maintain sound working relationships with all members of the multidisciplinary team
Qualifications/Knowledge
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of mental health conditions
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
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Will Gibson
- Job title
- Oxfordshire Peer Support Coordinator
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07917 828669
- Additional information
Please contact us by email in the first instance and register your attendance to one of the peer support worker information sessions to benefit your application. If after this you would like a phone call, please let us know by email and we will try our best to arrange this for you.
At Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust we want to employ people not just with experience, but with the aptitude and motivation to succeed and whose values resonate with our own.
Therefore, if you don’t meet all the requirements of the role and are unsure about applying but are excited about the opportunity, please do get in touch. We will be happy to discuss the requirements in more detail ahead of making a written application.
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