Peer Support Worker

Have you experienced your own mental health challenges and want to help other people overcome theirs? Then join Chadwick Lodge as a Peer Support Worker where you will use your empathy informed by your own experiences to support service users who currently have mental health needs. You will be offering peer support and will demonstrate best practice on mental health recovery and how to put it into action. As a Peer Support Worker, you will model the recovery principles together with personal responsibility, self-awareness and self-care whilst undertaking the duties of the role.

Working 37.5 hours a week you will offer a combination of group and one-to-one work, promote the implementation of cultural and structural changes and facilitate formal and informal learning.

What you will be doing as a Peer Support Worker:

• Drawing on lived experience of mental health challenges and/or the Criminal Justice System/Forensic services to provide emotional and practical support to service users and promote their recovery.
• Supporting service users to engage effectively with care being offered and access appropriate services.
• Drawing upon lived experience & using active listening skills to inspire hope, offer empathy, empowerment, confidence building & validate a service user’s feelings.
• Building relationships that are founded on the value of mutuality, which will facilitate regular and practical support (one-to-one and group-based). This will support service users in developing and managing independence while maintaining dignity and self-respect.
• Where appropriate, challenging discrimination to reduce the stigma of mental ill health.
• Positively promoting independent living through role-modelling individual recovery journeys.
• Having the individual service user’s needs always at the forefront of the PSW’s practice and to use the skills incorporated in the Peer Support Training to underpin their practice.
• Building rapport with service users, whilst maintaining professional boundaries.
• Drawing on the service user’s experience and knowledge and use an evidence-based approach.

To be successful in this role you will need:

• To have the ability to offer specialist support using their personal experience of recovery.
• To have experience of being in a supportive and enabling role.
• To demonstrate a strong commitment to the Recovery principles.
• Motivated to support people with a range of complex needs and a history of trauma/adverse experiences to meet their goals.
• Demonstrate the importance of maintaining patient confidentiality, professional boundaries and actively promote positive role modelling.
• Knowledge of the core principles that underpin Peer Support.
• Good written, verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
• To be able to work collaboratively as part of a team.
• To be able to prioritise effectively.
• Ability to use Elysium IT systems and other computer packages relevant to the role.
• Be committed to continuous development of job-related knowledge and skills, including essential IT skills.

Where you will be working:

Location: Chadwick Drive (off Saxon Street), Eaglestone, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK6 5LS. You will be working at Chadwick Lodge and Eaglestone View, a medium and low secure services providing specialist treatment programmes for service users who have been detained under the Mental Health Act (1983) and have a history of offending behaviour. The service offers a broad spectrum of evidence-based therapeutic interventions, involving service users at every stage. The hospital’s consultant-led multidisciplinary team has a wealth of clinical and research experience in forensic psychiatry. All programmes are designed to reduce the risk of re-offending and to maximise the potential and enhance the quality of life of each service user. Chadwick Lodge secure services care for service users with complex and enduring mental illness who need to achieve stability in order to benefit from multidisciplinary interventions, helping them move on to community settings whenever possible.

What you will get:

• Annual Salary of £25,935.00.
• The equivalent of 33 days annual leave (including Bank Holidays) – plus your birthday off!
• Wellbeing support and activities to help you maintain a great work-life balance.
• Career development and training to help you achieve your career goals.
• Pension contribution to secure your future.
• Life Assurance for added peace of mind.
• Enhanced Maternity Package so you can truly enjoy this special time.
• There is also a range of other benefits including retail discounts, special offers and much more.

About your next employer:

You will be working for an established, stable and agile company with over 8,000 employees and a unique approach to the delivery of care. With a network of over 90 services across England and Wales covering Mental Health, Neurological, Learning Disabilities & Autism, Children & Education, there is opportunity for you to grow and move. Elysium Healthcare is part of Ramsay Health Care with a global network that extends across 10 countries and employs over 86,000 people globally. Elysium Healthcare follows safer recruitment of staff for all appointments and is a Disability Confident employer, committed to inclusive and accessible recruitment. It is a requirement that all staff understand it is each person’s individual responsibility to promote and safeguard the welfare of service users. All candidates will be subject to a DBS disclosure.