Mental Health Worker, Waiting List Service

As a Link Worker, you will work with individuals who have Severe Mental Illness (SMI) who are often facing many challenges and will support them in their recovery.

These roles are funded to alleviate current pressures in the NHS, and will specifically work with people with SMI who are on the waiting list for treatment from statutory services or have recently been discharged and require wrap around support to help them manage their day to day lives during periods of instability in their mental health.

To be successful in this role you will need to be self-motivated, with a good up to date knowledge of the issues affecting our clients, strong interpersonal skills and the ability to effectively manage and organize your own caseload.

You will provide support, which is focused on active, empathic listening, helping the person to problem solve and to link into services and other local support resources. You will help co-produce a crisis plan, relapse prevention and other self-management tools in partnership with the individual, then support the individual through this to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence to withstand future life challenges, whilst maintaining good mental health and wellbeing.

The role will entail some home working alongside working with clients in the community. The hours will mainly be office hours during the working week with some evening and weekend work dependent on client needs.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Responsibility for a designated case load, carrying out personalised, recovery focussed action planning, and supporting implementation and review of the plan.
• Support individuals to make informed decisions about their mental wellbeing
• Support individuals to develop coping mechanisms and strategies to manage their mental wellbeing, maintaining good physical health and deal with social stressors such as housing or finance.
• Maintain hope and optimism for the person, expressing high expectations for recovery. Use lived experience (if appropriate) to positively support the person’s recovery.
• To actively navigate, broker and signpost the person to the services and resources they need. Provide just the right amount of support, to enable the person to do this. The amount and intensity of this support will vary depending on the person’s needs, mental health and life circumstances.
• Use a range of communication methods to engage with the person, including 11, Groups, Telephone, Email, SMS.
• Develop knowledge of the local care pathways to meet service users’ need.
• Actively support people to develop lasting, independent peer-support networks beyond and independent of the service.
• Manage caseload, documentation and time effectively, ensuring up to date and clear record keeping in line with organisational policies, making best use of supervision, training and staff development.

About You

To be successful in this role, the following are essential:

• Awareness of mental health issues & users’ needs
• Knowledge of recovery in the context of mental health
• Knowledge of the effects of stigma and discrimination
• Prepared to undertake a basic mental health qualification
• Very good organisational and time management skills, able to manage and prioritise own work
• Able and willing to regularly work without direct supervision, using initiative
• Very good interpersonal skills, with the ability to develop good working relationships at all levels, both internally and externally
• Group facilitation & participation skills
• Good written and verbal communication
• Good IT skills, including knowledge of a range of software packages (including Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word)

What We Offer In Return

We are proud to have been recognised and certified as a Great Place to Work, which speaks volumes on how much we value our staff members. In return for the hard work and dedication from our teams, we offer the following benefits:

• 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays (rising to 32 days at 5 years’ service) pro-rata for part-time and the option to purchase or sell day
• Enhanced pension
• Wagestream – ability to release earnings, giving you instant access to your pay
• Smart Clinic Wellbeing Programme including Employee Assistant Programme, GP and priority physiotherapy access and shopping discounts with the opportunity to sign up for a Blue Light Card
• Enhanced life assurance scheme, payment being three times your annual salary
• Plus, many more great benefits on offer

Here at Everyturn Mental Health we champion equality, diversity and inclusion within the organisation by ensuring our opportunities are open to all and our approach is inclusive. We positively encourage applications from candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion/belief, marital status, or pregnancy/maternity.

We welcome you to be yourself at work and have a range of Colleague Networks for members and allies of the LGBTQIA+; Black, Asian and minority ethnic; menopause and neurodivergent communities. #J-18808-Ljbffr