Peer Practitioner

Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust

Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust are pleased to announce that we are currently recruiting Peer Practitioners to work into our Hartlepool Community Team.

These roles will involve working together as part of a wider team. With support from the Peer Lead for Tees Valley and Senior Peer Worker, they will work towards the development of the system Peer Support Services in line with the Community Mental Health Framework and TEWV Peer Support Strategy as appropriate.

The Community Transformation is part of the NHS Long Term Plan and represents a shift in the way we currently deliver care. It is aligned to a model that considers the whole person, beyond their diagnosis, and looks at what the whole system has to offer (primary care, local authority, voluntary care sector, police, education as well as families and friends). The aim is to work together to ensure we collectively deliver trauma informed, person centred care to meet an individual's wide-ranging needs.

Peer support can be described as being when people with shared experiences connect to build safe, trusting and non-judgemental relationships where we learn and grow together. Peer Practitioners are people who have experience of mental health challenges and accessing services for mental health care, and are employed, trained and supported to work to the TEWV Peer Support Values and use their experiences to support others.

Main duties of the job

These are challenging but rewarding roles supporting people with a wide range of experiences.

For these roles, we are looking for people who have:

• Relevant experience of mental health challenges
• Personal experience of accessing secondary or inpatient mental health services.
• Personal experience of using your lived experience to support others, for example in a paid role, in volunteering, or in a user led environment

Your time in post will start with attending our peer support training alongside other people starting peer support roles with us. This training is delivered by people with their own lived experience who also have direct experience of working in peer roles themselves.

From there your work will involve:

• Providing 1:1 peer support to people accessing the service (this may involve supporting family / carers too)
• Setting up and facilitating / co-facilitating peer support groups
• Working into team meetings to support service users voices to be heard and bring lived experience expertise into team processes.
• Supporting service development within the teams you work in
• Building connections with a range of people and organisations within the system (including other peer support workers / providers).

To support you with this work you will receive ongoing regular 1:1 and group supervision, and will be able to access a range of other peer connection and development structures.

About us

We value diversity and want to have a wide range of identities represented in the peer workforce. We welcome applications from people with lived experience of distress and mental health services from the characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010 (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation) and other diverse groups.

We also value a diversity of experiences with mental health services in the peer workforce and welcome applications from people with helpful, difficult or mixed experiences of mental health services.

Individuals successful at application stage will attend a recruitment day to give them an opportunity to learn more about the role and to demonstrate their values and skills. There will be a shortlisting process after the recruitment day to identify candidates for interview.

Job responsibilities

These Peer Practitioner roles will involve working to support current service users both with a 1:1 caseload and also in groups as appropriate. Drawing on your own experience of mental health challenges, you will walk alongside others on their journey in a supportive peer relationship built on our core peer values of authenticity, relationship, validation, respect, mutuality and empowerment. You will listen non-judgementally to create safe spaces where people feel heard. You will approach the peer relationship with compassion and curiosity. You will recognise and value peoples strengths, diversity and expertise in themselves. You will be aware of the impacts of trauma and committed to the importance of working in ways which are sensitive to the needs of trauma survivors.

You also will be an integrated and valued member of the team. Peer Practitioner roles involve contributing peer values and the knowledge, skills and expertise that come with lived experience of mental health challenges and mental health services. Important parts of this role also include working within the team to help service users voices be heard and to promote recovery values and trauma informed approaches. Peer Practitioners will be supported to challenge both individual and structural instances of stigma and discrimination related to mental health and other forms of exclusion.

Please see the uploaded job description or approach us for an informal chat if you would like further details on the post.

Person Specification Qualifications

• Foundation Degree or equivalent OR equivalent experience of providing peer support in a community or inpatient setting
• Numeracy, Literacy and ITQ level 2 (or equivalent)
• Completed Trust Trauma Informed Peer Support Training course (passing within agreed timescale)

Knowledge

• Experience of delivering peer support in a paid or voluntary role, or in a user led environment
• Personal experience of mental health challenges or a learning disability that is relevant to the specific role advertised
• Personal experience of accessing secondary (or inpatient) mental health services
• Experience of actively engaging in a supervision or co-supervision system
• oUnderstanding of the needs of individuals from diverse social, ethnic and cultural backgrounds
• Experience of social exclusion, stigma and / or discrimination
• Psychiatric Hospital admission
• Experience of co-production or user led groups or projects
• Experience of facilitating peer support groups

Knowledge

• Passionate about the values of peer support and understands what the role adds to a team
• Understands importance of maintaining integrity to peer support role
• Understanding of trauma informed approaches and trauma informed peer support, and demonstrated ability to apply this knowledge to practice

Skills

• Able to share elements of own life experiences, and engage compassionately with experiences of others, in a way appropriate to the role and peer relationship
• Good peer relationship skills and ability to verbally describe these skills .
• Ability to communicate information (verbal and written) effectively in a manner appropriate to the individual and situation

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.

Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust

£25,147 to £27,596 a year(pro rata), per annum

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