Band 4 Employment Advisor - Wiltshire Talking Therapies

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our Employment Support team as an Employment Advisor. The successful candidates will work alongside the Senior Employment Advisor as part of the Wiltshire Talking Therapies Service.

You will provide specialist employment interventions for people accessing the talking therapies service who have mild to moderate mental health needs and who require support to gain, return to or retain employment.

As an Advisor with employability related experience, you will have empathy and ideally some experience of working with people who have mental health issues and an understanding of the barriers they face in accessing and retaining employment.

We will require the successful post holder to have the ability to travel to a variety of locations in the Wiltshire area which may not be accessible by public transport.

This post is for a fixed term duration of 12 months.

Main duties of the job

You will carry out vocational assessments for your caseload of service users, providing advice, guidance and support, working with our team of psychological therapists to create a bespoke action plan in line with their individual needs and chosen route in employment, training or volunteering.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

• To provide interventions (both group based and individual) to Wiltshire Talking Therapies service users, who have work related problems. These may be delivered online or face to face.
• Assess and discuss the person’s job goals.
• Create an employment support plan, matching job tasks with the individual’s ability and agree a written action plan.
• Promote wellbeing in the workplace and where appropriate, act as advocate with employers or prospective employers to identify work solutions to overcome or minimise potential difficulties within the workplace.
• Provide support after return to work, helping the person integrate and retain the employment.
• Develop an in-depth knowledge of the local labour market, local support and new interventions including voluntary and community organisations, educational and recreational opportunities.
• Work with local agencies and employers to identify appropriate vacancies.
• Help to use other schemes aimed at retaining and finding employment.
• Provide help to find the right job and provide advice and support on applying for positions and preparing for interviews.
• Working independently on a day-to-day basis with goals to be agreed and reviewed in regular supervision sessions.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Evidence of further study in vocational training / careers advice

• Relevant degree / NVQ level 3 or equivalent
• Basic counselling qualification

Experience

• Experience of providing vocational / employment support

• Experience of working with the voluntary sector
• Experience of working in a caring role
• Experience of working within the Welfare to Work or Employability sector

Knowledge

• Statistical knowledge

• Knowledge of employment law
• Understanding of common mental health problems

Skills

• IT / word processing skills
• Counselling / listening skills
• Ability to work collaboratively with other staff
• Good written and verbal presentation skills

• Ability to negotiate with employers on behalf of the service user

Other

• Available for flexible working outside normal office hours

This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

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Please apply to join us, we would love to hear from you. Any personal details you supply to us are kept safe in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Adverts normally close for application a few minutes before midnight on the closing date and we will let you know if we are offering you an interview by email via our recruitment system ‘TRAC’. We contact all applicants within 4 weeks after the closing date, so please check your emails regularly once you have submitted your application; you are welcome to contact us, via the TRAC system, if you have any queries about your application.

Please note the use of AI is monitored and if you have used it in your application you are required to declare this.