[ref. y5524822] Peer Support Worker - Chiltern Crisis Team - NHS
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.
We actively support anti-racism, equality, diversity, and inclusion so, if you’re excited about this job opportunity and you meet our Trust values, but feel unsure about applying, then please get in touch and we will be happy to have a conversation with you.
We are also committed to increasing diversity in the workforce, that is why we actively encourage applications from those groups of people who are currently under-represented, which include amongst others: people with disabilities; men from all socio-economic backgrounds; people from diverse ethnic backgrounds; and people from the LGBTQIA+ community.
Good luck and we hope to hear from you.
Job overview
Do you have prior lived experience of ill-mental health?
We are recruiting for a Peer Support Worker within the Oxford Health Buckinghamshire Adult Mental Health Service.
Peer Support Workers are people who have their own lived experience of mental health challenges. They use empathy informed by their own experiences to support service users/families who are accessing mental health services.
The service you will be working in - the Chiltern Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment team - is a key part of the Urgent Care Pathway meeting the demands of the Ten-Year Plan to provide Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Services to the county of Buckinghamshire.
Clinicians employed into the team are part of an exciting and developing service aimed at supporting our most vulnerable patients and their families in the least restrictive setting possible, by providing a variety of highly intensive interventions at home.As well as Crisis resolution and home treatment work, we carry out all urgent and very urgent assessments; we are a large team of clinicians to manage a caseload of around 40 service users at any one time.
Service Users access our service in a variety of ways, ranging from referrals from their GP and attendance at an emergency department, to when they need care in the community and are seen by the police or ambulance services. The aim of the Urgent Care Pathway is to bring together all those access points under one team and ensure a smooth journey through the pathway.
Main duties of the job
The Chiltern Crisis and Home resolution team, require a Peer Support Worker who can work both independently and as part of our team, with the support of the other team members and can bring their own lived expertise of crisis to a fast-paced team, and who are confident working closely with colleagues and service users alike.
Peer support workers will appreciate that service users in crisis often have difficulty navigating through NHS and voluntary sector services. You will support service users to understand their rights and what to expect from the team, interpret NHS language and jargon and motivate people to access further support as they approach recovery to reduce the risk of becoming unwell in future.
The successful applicant could participate in a duty rota of early, late or long day shifts covering 7 days a week, or we can discuss alternative working hours between 9am-5pm Mon to Fri if that suits the successful candidate best. Please let us know at your interview if there is a preference as we are committed to supporting staff to balance home and work life.We are a friendly and supportive team with strong leadership and direction. Our work is interesting and varied with plenty of opportunities to learn new skills both in the workplace and via our excellent Learning & Development team.
The role is predominantly based in Saffron House, High Wycombe and may require some wider travel within the county.
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
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 trained for the role and given the opportunity to complete the national recognised care certificate.
The Peer Support Worker will demonstrate best practice in relation to the application of recovery principles within their practice and model the recovery principles together with personal responsibility, self-awareness and self-care whilst undertaking the duties of the role.
The role sees the introduction of lived experience into everyday practice. Depending on service need, PSW’s may offer a variation 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.
Oxford Health offer Peer Support Training as part of the role to all new Peer Support Workers, and we additionally offer a nationally recognised accredited Level 3 Apprenticeship (fully funded by Oxford Health), for those eligible.
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 Apprentices will receive 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
- 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.
Is this right for me?
If you are thinking of applying, The Trust strongly recommends reading the attached document entitled 'Things to consider before you apply' . This document will help you understand more about your readiness for the role so you can make an informed decision if the job is right for you.
Please see attached Job Description regarding the eligibility criteria for this role and ensure you have read this carefully.
Please note, applications for this role close on midnight Sunday 2 February 2025. Interview dates will take place on either Monday 24 February or Tuesday 25 February 2025. Please indicate in your personal statement if there is a date that you definitely couldn't attend.
Person specification
Experience
Essential criteria- The ability to offer specialist support using their personal experience of recovery
- 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
Knowledge/Qualifications
Desirable criteria- Knowledge of mental health conditions
- All new starters have a thorough induction process, both local and Trust wide, which aims to create a positive supportive working environment allowing new employees to learn key elements of their role over a reasonable timescale.
- Appointment to this post is subject to the trust receiving satisfactory references covering 3 years of employment or study. Please ask your referees to respond promptly to reference requests.
- Employees are expected to undertake mandatory and statutory training related to their role.
- We are ambitious in our pursuit of excellence, driven by the belief that a fair, just and fully inclusive organisational culture enables our teams to deliver the best quality of care and services possible and we work hard to ensure that our diverse workforce reflects the communities that we serve.
- We welcome applications from all sections of the community, are an Equal Opportunities employer with a number of internal networking groups to support our employees and where possible will always look to make reasonable adjustments in order that you can fulfil the role to recognise your full potential. All our employees are committed to demonstrating through their behaviour our core values – safe, caring and excellent.
- Oxford Health is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
- Oxford is a world-renowned centre of excellence for research. Oxford Health works closely with the University of Oxford department of Psychiatry and the Department of Primary care, has a Biomedical Research Centre dedicated to improving mental health and the NIHR Clinical Research Facility at the Warneford site. The Trust also hosts the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) which carries out applied research that directly impacts patient health and wellbeing