Employment Specialist

Luton, Bedford or Central Bedfordshire | ELFT NHS

Permanent contract

Do you want to make a genuine difference and transform someone’s life?

Deadline: 15th July 2025

• East Midlands
• Full-time

Job overview

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people’s lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

We are looking for a motivated, passionate self-starter who wants to kickstart a career in the mental health sector. This position, with on-the-job training, is a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference and support those with mental health needs across the Luton, Bedford or Central Bedfordshire Mental Health Community Hubs.

As an Employment Specialist, you will play a vital role in helping people with mental health needs find meaningful and fulfilling employment. You’ll receive all the training and support you need to take on the role, develop your skills, and have access to a broad range of opportunities within Bedfordshire and Luton IPS Employment Services.

We welcome applications from all experience levels and backgrounds. What you will need is the ability to motivate and build relationships with service users, strong organisational skills, the confidence to communicate and engage with a range of employers, and a fundamental belief that anyone with a mental health condition can work.

We are running an assessment center on 23rd July 2025 as part of the recruitment process.

If you are shortlisted and are called to the assessment center but fail to attend, then you will not be put forward to the interview stage.

Role

What is a Mental Health IPS Employment Specialist?

This is an exciting and dynamic role, where no one day is the same and you’ll be making a genuine difference to people’s lives. Using the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model, you’ll be:

• Supporting and motivating individuals with mental health needs to access and sustain paid employment.
• Regularly meeting with clients to listen, help them identify their best job match, reflecting on their skills and aspirations, providing support including CV production, interview techniques.
• Provide in-work support, assessing each client’s work-related needs, designing a return-to-work strategy, and ensuring job retention with ongoing contact.
• Advocating for your clients by educating and engaging with employers regarding the IPS service.
• Sourcing job opportunities for your clients through regular contact with local employers within the community.
• Work as part of the Luton mental health team to promote employment and raise expectations around the ability of service users to access paid employment, breaking down the barriers for them.

Responsibilities

Please refer to job description

The person

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience in the field of supported employment – to degree level.
• Occupational Therapy, Social Work, Psychology or Employment qualifications.
• IPS training.
• Experience of initiating, liaising and collaborating with a wide range of individuals and organisations promoting and developing employment, education and training opportunities on behalf of service users.
• Experience of working with a range of mental health service users (in health, social care and/or voluntary sectors) implementing individual programmes and interventions.
• Experience of working towards recovery goal attainment at pace.
• Experience of actively and regularly engaging with employers and employment providers to seek out employment opportunities on behalf of service users.
• Knowledge of good practice in employment legislation protecting disability equality.
• Experience of constructing and reviewing individually tailored programmes using a person-centred approach.
• Knowledge of vocational assessment & profiling of service users’ vocational needs.
• Recent experience of working with service users to help them meet their employment-related goals.
• Experience & knowledge of the benefits agency and all disability employment related benefits.
• Experience of collecting caseload and outcome data.
• Personal experience of using Mental Health services.

Knowledge and Skills – Essential criteria

• Enthusiasm and commitment towards supporting people with mental health problems find paid employment.
• An understanding of the benefits of work as part of the recovery process and a positive attitude to enabling service users overcome barriers to finding employment, are essential.
• Excellent marketing and promotional skills with an excellent negotiation skills & persuasive style.
• Able to analyse situations / information to identify and support service users to address their individual needs in relation to employment, education and training.
• Good time management skills to balance the co-ordination of own diary making best use of time, efficiently and effectively.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and collectively as part of a team.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Ability to embrace and adapt to new challenges.
• Knowledge of local employment issues, relevant Government policy and Trust priorities.

• Excellent IT skills

• Ability to work autonomously and use own initiative.
• Knowledge of relevant welfare benefits and benefits rules.
• Experience of delivering presentations to a wide variety of colleagues and agencies internal and external to the Trust.

Other – Essential criteria

• An inclusive approach to employment and a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Flexible/adaptable.
• Ability to travel independently to other bases.
• Cover for team members working in other areas in exceptional circumstances.

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