ITRS Practitioner (North Devon)

General Overview

FearFree delivers services across the Southwest for victims, children and perpetrators of domestic abuse, sexual violence and stalking, with the aim to break the cycle of abuse and support all to live free from fear. We provide trauma responsive support, and this post will be fundamental to ensuring service users, stakeholders and partners experience this in our daily delivery. The aim of the Interpersonal Trauma Response Service is to improve the health, wellbeing and safety of people who have been exposed to trauma arising from sexual violence and abuse and/or domestic abuse.

You will work across a specified number of GP practices across North Devon, to offer support to health professionals working in practices, people who have experience of interpersonal trauma arising from sexual violence and abuse and/or domestic abuse, as well as a service for people at risk of perpetrating abuse. You and the team will provide training to GP surgeries to improve identification, enquiry, and response for patients. You and your team will also support adults and children who have been impacted by interpersonal trauma with emotional and practical support, focusing on trauma stabilisation. The team will be responsible for facilitating timely access to further appropriate support services where needed.

FearFree is committed to flexible and hybrid working and this role will be a mix of home based and office based, alongside requiring travel to GP practices and for multi-agency meetings and other deliverables. This role may include evening and weekend work when required.

Key Responsibilities

• To provide specialist, individual and needs-led domestic abuse and sexual violence advocacy and support to patients who are or have experienced, who are referred from participating practices or self-refer, and to provide onward referrals where appropriate.
• Provide direct assessment, casework support, advice, information, and advocacy through telephone contact, and/or meetings at the relevant practice.
• Provide support to increase people’s personal safety, and that of any children, and inform them of their rights and options in terms of housing, legal and welfare rights.
• To provide signposting and onward referrals to patients.
• To provide ongoing specialist advice and support around Domestic Abuse (DA) and Sexual Violence (SV) to practice teams.
• To encourage general practice health professionals to ask patients about their experience of abuse and respond, record, safety check and refer.
• To provide feedback on case outcomes to referring clinicians.
• To collect and collate performance and monitoring data for reporting purposes.
• Provide in-house training and refresher training for general practice teams on understanding, recognising, and responding to DA and SV.
• Develop good working relationships and liaise with outside agencies where needed.
• Keep accurate records of all referrals received and of work done with or on behalf of service users.
• Deliver DA and SV training to clinicians and non-clinical staff in participating general practices.
• Develop a good relationship with all general practice staff and work effectively as part of the practice team.
• Contribute to monitoring and evaluation of the programme collecting required data and producing written reports as requested.

FearFree is committed to encouraging equality and diversity in the workplace. We strive to be a diverse and inclusive place to work where we can all be ourselves and individual differences are recognised and valued.

Hours: 22.5 - 30 hours per week; full time may also be considered.