Drug and Alcohol Service Recovery Practitioner

The post holder will provide support to Bexley Children and Young People located within the Borough of Bexley, providing assessment, individualised and group psychosocial interventions, and consultative support to professional within social care and education settings. They will work closely alongside the specialist substance misuse practitioner to provide seamless care and intervention.

Clinical Duties
- To support and promote the delivery of substance strategy across the borough of Bexley community locations.
- To provide timely substance related screening and assessment to Young people within the community pathways.
- To engage Young people in personalised psycho-social interventions to promote recovery and develop enhanced self-management skills.
- To co-facilitate the substance misuse training alongside peer trainers and other team members.
- To understand the impact of social and cultural diversity on young people and their carers’ experiences of mental illness and substance use, and the services that provide care and treatment.
- To encourage and promote young people broader engagement with physical health and well-being themes, signposting and referring to other health professionals as appropriate.
- To develop understanding of the complex interplay between mental health, substance use and offending behaviour, utilising skills for the management and prevention of violence and aggression.

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

- We’re Kind
- We’re Fair
- We Listen
- We Care

Key Task and Responsibilities
- Provide support and follow up for those young people who may be using substances.
- Provide interventions for young people who are looking to work towards abstinence, managing their substance misuse in a safer manner, or to build and develop their relapse prevention skills.
- The post holder will be expected to work autonomously at times utilising an integrated motivational Interviewing approach that is both person centred and holistic.
- The post holder will demonstrate a commitment to the promotion of harm reduction initiatives that encourage young people’s resilience and recovery.
- To provide treatment in an environment where security and safety procedures must be strictly adhered to and ensure that legal restrictions associated with the mental health act are incorporated into activity provision.
- To participate in clinical governance and quality improvement projects as allocated by Substance misuse Specialist practitioner, BYPDAS.
- To ensure that areas are well maintained, kept and comply with health and safety guidelines, ensuring the safe use of equipment and storage of materials.
- To undertake relevant activities to meet training objectives identified with your supervisor.
- To keep a record of your training and development activities.
- In line with Trust guidelines, review and reflect on your own practice and performance through regular participation in professional supervision and appraisal.
- To participate in the delivery of on-going substance related training, disseminating and sharing information and skills with staff and students working within CAMHS Directorate.

To participate in relevant training opportunities