Job summary
Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust are pleased to announce that we are currently recruiting for a Senior Peer Workers to supervise our peer workers working into our AMH inpatient wards across North Yorkshire at Foss Park and Cross Lane Hospitals.
Senior peer workers are professionally accountable for their own peer support caseload, and work autonomously to deliver peer support. Senior Peer Workers provide regular professional supervision to peer workers and peer practitioners.
Peer support can be described as being when people with shared experiences connect to build safe, trusting and non-judgemental relationships where we learn and grow together. Peer Workers are people who have experience of mental health challenges and accessing services for mental health care, and are employed, trained and supported to work to the TEWV Peer Support Values and use their experiences to support others. These Senior Peer Worker roles will involve working in inpatient environments to support current service users both 1:1 and in groups as appropriate.
Main duties of the job
These are challenging but rewarding roles supporting people with a wide range of experiences. Drawing on your own experience of mental health challenges, you will ‘walk alongside’ others on their journey in a supportive peer relationship built on our core peer values of authenticity, relationship, validation, respect, mutuality and empowerment. You will listen non-judgementally to create safe spaces where people feel heard. You will approach the peer relationship with compassion and curiosity. You will recognise and value people’s strengths, diversity and expertise in themselves. You will be aware of the impacts of trauma and committed to the importance of working in ways which are sensitive to the needs of trauma survivors.
You will be an integrated and valued member of the team. Senior Peer Worker roles involve contributing peer values and the knowledge, skills and expertise that come with lived experience of mental health challenges and mental health services. Important parts of this role also include working within the team to help service users’ voices be heard and to promote recovery values and trauma informed approaches.
About us
For these roles, we are looking for people who have relevant experience of mental health challenges and who have personal experience of accessing secondary or inpatient mental health services. You will have personal experience of delivering peer support.
Senior Peer Workers will be supported to challenge both individual and structural instances of stigma and discrimination related to mental health and other forms of exclusion.
We value diversity and want to have a wide range of identities represented in the peer workforce. We welcome applications from people with lived experience of distress and mental health services from the characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010 (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation) and other diverse groups.
We also value a diversity of experiences with mental health services in the peer workforce and welcome applications from people with helpful, difficult or mixed experiences of mental health services.
Successful applicants will receive training and regular peer supervision to support them in the role, and will work within teams of peer workers .
Job description
Job responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for further detailed information to ensure that you meet the role criteria before applying.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for further detailed information to ensure that you meet the role criteria before applying.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Educated to degree level OR has equivalent experience developing and delivering Peer Support in a community or NHS setting.
- Numeracy, Literacy and ITQ level 2 (or equivalent)
- Completed Trust approved Peer Support Training
- Completed Trust Trauma Informed Peer Support Training course (passing within agreed timescale)
Experience
Essential
- Personal experience of mental health challenges or a learning disability that is relevant to the specific role advertised
- Personal experience of accessing secondary (or inpatient) mental health services
- Experience of working as a peer worker or in another lived experience essential role
- Experience of delivering peer support in a paid or voluntary role, or in a user led environment
- Experience in delivering supervision or co-supervision to peers
- Experience of actively engaging in a supervision or co-supervision system
Knowledge
Essential
- Passionate about the values of peer support and understands what the role adds to a team
- Understanding of trauma informed approaches and trauma informed peer support
Skills
Essential
- Able to share elements of own life experiences, and engage compassionately with experiences of others, in a way appropriate to the role and peer relationship
- Work collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary team
- Ability to lead peer support group sessions
Personal Attributes
Essential
- Commitment to supporting service users voices to be heard
- Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Educated to degree level OR has equivalent experience developing and delivering Peer Support in a community or NHS setting.
- Numeracy, Literacy and ITQ level 2 (or equivalent)
- Completed Trust approved Peer Support Training
- Completed Trust Trauma Informed Peer Support Training course (passing within agreed timescale)
Experience
Essential
- Personal experience of mental health challenges or a learning disability that is relevant to the specific role advertised
- Personal experience of accessing secondary (or inpatient) mental health services
- Experience of working as a peer worker or in another lived experience essential role
- Experience of delivering peer support in a paid or voluntary role, or in a user led environment
- Experience in delivering supervision or co-supervision to peers
- Experience of actively engaging in a supervision or co-supervision system
Knowledge
Essential
- Passionate about the values of peer support and understands what the role adds to a team
- Understanding of trauma informed approaches and trauma informed peer support
Skills
Essential
- Able to share elements of own life experiences, and engage compassionately with experiences of others, in a way appropriate to the role and peer relationship
- Work collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary team
- Ability to lead peer support group sessions
Personal Attributes
Essential
- Commitment to supporting service users voices to be heard
- Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) .
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .
Additional information
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) .
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .
