Peer Support Worker

Have you ever experienced a severe and enduring mental health issue such as psychosis or bi-polar disorder and received care from secondary mental health services but are now ready to move forward into a working role? Could you help use this experience to help others both front line with services users offering them hope or within the organisation in helping develop our new intensive and assertive service.

The Assertive Outreach Team (AOT) have a particular focus on individuals with treatment resistant psychosis and frequent admissions or long stays in inpatient units locally, and out of county, as well as individuals with 24 hour support whose placements are at risk of breaking down.

This role will seek to build links between internal services, VCSE (voluntary, community or social enterprise) organisations and existing/new care providers to ensure a multi-agency, collaborative and recovery-oriented approach to complex rehabilitation. This will include creating a shared ethos and goals and a sense of hope and optimism to deliver individualised and person-centred care to promote independence and integration within the local community.

This role is offered on a permanent basis . The hours are part-time, 15 hours per week.

The main duties of the Peer Support Worker role are:

To communicate with a variety of people and keep accurate and complete records consistent with the Trust's policies and procedures.

To act as a specialist resource within the service, by offering a unique perspective to service users. To act as an expert on recovery resources.

To share ideas about ways of achieving recovery goals.

To co-facilitate group therapy, support and psycho-education groups in various settings within the community as deemed clinically appropriate.

To promote opportunities for people with lived experience to raise awareness and promote understanding.

Attend Peer Support Group meetings.

Support individuals and their families from a holistic perspective.

Identify risk and ensure appropriate risk assessments are carried out, and comply with Health and Safety requirements.

To attend and actively participate in support and supervision meetings and other meetings as agreed.

To maintain good communication with colleagues within Gloucestershire Health and Care Trust, peer mentors, partner organisations and external agencies.

Work closely with Trust social inclusion team, help lead on quarterly expert by lived experience forums.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.

76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.

81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Gloucestershire Health and Care is committed to embedding and providing personalised care through all of its services as part of our high-quality care strategy. The purpose of personalised care is to empower people to lead the lives they want to live. Personalised care starts with a conversation with people about what matters to them. It builds on what people can do, as well as addressing their health needs. Including new ways of working and delivering care, emphasising that we need to make effective use of the full range of our people's skills and experience to deliver the best possible patient care. So we want to know What Matters to You and that you will share our values and join us on this very important journey.

As a Peer Support Worker you will be responsible for participating and assisting in the delivery of care / services to patients and service users as part of a Mental Health and Social Care Health Service. Peer Support Worker , Social Care Workers and other Healthcare Support Workers employed by the Trust are required to follow the guidance set out in Code of Conduct for Health Care Assistants/ Health Care Support Workers to provide safe and compassionate care of a high standard, and to challenge others who are not.

You will receive direct supervision and partake in reflective practice / training on a regular basis and be required to meet the Care Certificate standards. All successful applicants will also have the opportunity to discuss the prospect of undertaking a Level 3 Healthcare Support Worker Apprenticeship alongside their substantive post. This apprenticeship would include the Level 3 Diploma in Clinical Healthcare.

Please refer to the Additional Information attachment before submitting your application.

This role is not eligible for sponsorship as per the Government's UK VISA and Immigration Rules and Regulations. For more information please visit