Healthier Me Coach

Are you passionate about health and wellbeing? Do you want to support people with a learning disability to live healthier, happier lives? Do you want to be part of real, lasting change in Northern Ireland? If your answers are 'YES' - we want to hear from you!

This work is based in the following areas: Mid Ulster, Omagh and Fermanagh, Derry and Strabane. This is a fixed-term role until December 2027.

The Healthier Me Coach - Northern Ireland West is key to the delivery of our exciting Omaze funded activity. In our new programme called "Healthier Me", we aim to reduce the health inequalities experienced by people with a learning disability. We want to empower people we support and our staff teams to have better tools when it comes to health and wellbeing, and we want to make community health offerings more accessible for people with a learning disability. This work will complement an already well-established healthy living footprint across Mencap Northern Ireland.

In this role you will be working within a team of Healthier Me Coaches across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Healthier Me Coach will work both independently and collaboratively. In the Healthier Me Coach role, you will support people with a learning disability to improve their understanding of, and access to, health and wellbeing. A key part of this work will be to support around 100 people with a learning disability to set and achieve personal health goals over 2.5 years. You will do this through 1-1 coaching, delivering workshops and signposting, amongst other things.

The post holder will be responsible for supporting individual progression and connecting the people we support with each other and appropriate opportunities in the community. The Healthier Me Coach will line manage at least one local ‘Healthier Me Champion’. The Healthier Me Champion position is a role for people with a learning disability, and it will strengthen the delivery of this work.

In this role you will be engaging with a range of stakeholders. The Healthier Me Coach will work collaboratively with stakeholders, share information and resources, and increase awareness of the barriers to health faced by people with a learning disability. Stakeholders will include, but are not limited to:

• Local staff in Mencap services
• Community organisations
• Local health teams
• Families and Carers
• Internal Mencap teams
• The Healthier Me Programme Manager
• Other Healthier Me Coaches

We want the Healthier Me Coach to use a community-led approach, giving people we support and the wider community opportunities to contribute and be part of local solutions. The coach will establish strong working relationships that enable Mencap to secure positive outcomes for people with a learning disability. The Healthier Me Coach will work closely with the Programme Manager to ensure good monitoring processes are followed to reach set targets and goals. You will support with monitoring progression, collecting and inputting data and contributing information for reports.

Our values

In everything you do you will act as an ambassador for Mencap and promote our values.

Key Responsibilities:

• Line management of colleagues with a learning disability – Healthier Me Champions.
• Effectively manage a caseload of individuals, supporting them to set and achieve personalised health goals.
• Ensure that all contractual outcomes linked to your caseload are achieved, captured and documented.
• Deliver workshops and training to Mencap teams, people with a learning disability and community members.
• Implement community-led ways of working and co-production in approach to work.
• Provide signposting, support and tools to individuals, carers and support staff.
• Take responsibility for own professional development, and where needed use feedback to continually improve own performance.
• Develop relationships with stakeholders and gather feedback.
• Complete reporting required for internal and external monitoring, accurately and on time.
• Generate community opportunities with local organisations (e.g. allotment, leisure centre, social groups).
• Highlight and report any practice issues or safety concerns to secure support and improvement in line with organisational policies.

The successful candidate will:

• Be passionate about making health and wellbeing accessible.
• Have excellent communication and relationship building skills.
• Demonstrate enthusiasm and flexibility for the team and its work.
• Demonstrate an understanding of community-led ways of working.
• Demonstrate an understanding of a duty of care to the individuals supported.
• Understand responsibility for Prevent, safeguarding and critical incident reporting in accordance with both internal and external procedures.
• Demonstrate an interest and commitment to the broader work of Mencap by attending meetings as required to support collaboration.

Person Specification

• Skills & abilities
• Essential/Desirable
• Professional conduct and relationships - E
• Effective record keeping and reporting - E
• Building positive relationships/partnerships - E
• Working to targets - E
• Managing and developing team members - E
• Excellent team working skills - E
• Have an interest in and desire to know more about learning disability - E
• Hold a driving licence and access to a vehicle - D
• Working with community groups and leisure providers - D

• Knowledge and experience
• Essential/Desirable
• Experience of supporting people - E
• Experience of delivering against targets - E
• Experience of coaching - D
• Experience of delivering training - D
• Experience of risk management - D
• Experience of caseload review - D
• Experience of gathering stakeholder feedback - D
• Experience of community led ways of working - H