Peer Support Worker

Do you have lived experience of health challenges?

Do you want to use your own experiences of accessing NHS services to support peers joining and leaving Peterborough Adult Locality Teams?

Would you like to join our friendly, dynamic and busy adult locality team here in Peterborough as a Peer Support Worker?

Through sharing the wisdom from own lived experience, the Peer Support Worker (PSW) will inspire hope and belief that recovery is possible in others. Within a relationship of mutuality, the PSW will facilitate and support information sharing to promote choice, self-determination and opportunities for the fulfilment of socially valued roles and connection to local communities.

The team here at Town Hall offer support to anyone over 17 years old with moderate to severe mental illness, such as bipolar illness, depression, personality disorder, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or psychosis / schizophrenia.

The service is a multidisciplinary team, which values greatly the skill sets that the various disciplines bring. Service delivery and care is very service user focused and seeks to deliver high quality effective treatment, care and support.

This role is for 12 months and will be a hybrid of office, home and community work. It is based in Peterborough however, there may be the potential to support within Wisbech and Huntingdon areas.

To work with Peterborough Adult Locality teams who are community based services for adults aged 17-65 with moderate to severe mental illness taking on a specific role supporting peers and carers on entry into the service and some service evaluation at exit point.

As an integral and highly valued member of the multi-disciplinary team, the PSW will provide formalised peer support and practical assistance to peers and other service users in order for them to regain control over their lives and their own unique recovery process.

The PSW will take a lead role in embedding recovery values within PALT, and act as an ambassador of Recovery for the Trust with external agencies and partner organisations.

The PSW will promote their role, through the provision of information and a range of learning opportunities for the multi-disciplinary team and others across the Trust.

To make individual contact where appropriate to welcome peers accepted onto team caseload and in so doing - explain the function of the team and different professionals within it, what to expect from the service, how duty works, collect baseline outcome data, collect consent, collect carers information, keep some contact during any waiting period for service, how to access support outside of working hours, signpost if relevant to community resources, link in with families and carers and provide similar information as above as well as carers handbook and welcome letter.

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health & social care organisation dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion to improve the health & wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting & empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services not only via inpatient and primary care setting but also with the community. These services include Children, Adult & Older Peoples mental & physical health, Forensic & Specialist mental health, Learning Disabilities, Primary Care & Liaison psychiatry, Substance misuse, Social care, Research & Development.

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities
- Establish a supportive and respectful relationship with peers and other service users.
- To make individual contact where appropriate to welcome service users accepted onto team caseload and in so doing - explain the function of the team and different professionals within it, what to expect from the service, how duty works, collect baseline outcome data, collect consent, collect carers information, keep some contact during any waiting period for service, how to access support outside of working hours, signpost if relevant to community resources, link in with families and carers and provide similar information as above as well as carers handbook and welcome letter.
- Model personal responsibility, self-awareness, self-belief, self-advocacy and hopefulness via the telling of own recovery story to inspire and instil confidence in peers.
- Assist peers and other service users in creating a Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) and advanced directives.
- Share and coach coping, self-help and self-management techniques within the peer relationship.
- Support peers and other service users to identify and overcome fears and within a relationship of empathy, trust and honesty, challenge negative self-talk.
- Facilitate access to community groups and networks that enable peers and other service users to participate in community activities, in order to maximise opportuniti