Peer Facilitator

Site East Lancashire Early Intervention Service Town Accrington Salary £25,272 pa pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 04/06/:59

Our Vision is to provide the best mental health, learning disability, autism, community, and physical health services for the populations we serve.

As an integrated Trust, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCFT) delivers a comprehensive range of services, including:

• Primary and secondary mental health care for children and adults, including specialist inpatient child and adolescent mental health provision, perinatal mental health, and forensic services with low and medium secure care.
• Specialist mental health inpatient care for individuals with learning disabilities, alongside specialist community support for children and adults with learning disabilities and autism, including intensive support.
• Extensive community physical health and well-being services for children and adults, covering prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and long term condition management.

The Trust was first established in 2002 and employs approximately 7,500 staff who provide care from more than 400 sites. The organization offers opportunities for medics, mental health, general nurses, children's nurses, allied health professionals, psychology, administration and clerical staff, apprentices and volunteers, as well as those specialising in learning disabilities and community physical health services.

Do you have experience of using mental health services and working as a peer facilitator in Early Intervention services? Would you like to use these experiences to support other people and their families receiving these services?

Can you inspire hope and belief that recovery is possible - empowering our service users to achieve their hopes, dreams and goals?

If you are willing to share your own experiences with others, we are looking to recruit Peer Facilitators with lived experience of using mental health services to join our East Early Intervention team.

Peer Facilitators will receive support and training to enable them to carry out the day to day duties of the post and, as employees of the Trust, will have full access to our staff health and wellbeing offer, including supervision and other occupational health services.

Personal Qualities ideal for the role:

Having an empathic understanding of a service user's experience when admitted to a mental health inpatient unit that is supported by the following:

• Ability to encourage participation, good communication skills or willingness to develop these.
• Ability to listen without bias and to objectively see both sides of an issue.
• Ability to feed back information in a constructive manner.
• Ability to use lived experience in a positive and appropriate way with an awareness of own personal recovery journey.

Peer support is based on the recognition that there is no better person to support the path towards recovery than someone who has walked the same path as that individual, and could support an individual to develop a career within the NHS.

The Peer Support Facilitator will provide formalised peer support and practical assistance to service users in order for them to regain control over their lives and their own unique recovery process.

The Peer Support Facilitator will come alongside a service user through their recovery journey.

Peer Support Facilitators work as part of our teams and in collaboration with other colleagues within the team.

Peer Support Facilitators engage with service users to show empathy, share experience, inspire hope and promote recovery with the aim of assisting service users to gain and maintain independence in the community.

The role will include 1:1 and group work and Peer Support Facilitators will support service users in developing pre vocational skills. Pre vocational interventions will be delivered by the Peer Support Facilitator and these will support service users to increase their confidence and work ability, develop a daily routine and engage in other opportunities that will assist with their recovery.

Peer support Facilitators draw on lived experiences to bring hope and raise aspirations to increase opportunities to access employment support, to those using services. Encourage and inspire a recovery focus amongst team colleagues.

LSCFT values diversity and inclusion, recognising that talent from varied backgrounds creates a flexible, creative, and effective workforce. We actively challenge discrimination and welcome applications from all, regardless of age, disability (including those with experience of accessing or caring for someone who has accessed mental health or learning disability services), ethnicity, gender, religion, belief, or sexual orientation.

Our aim is to reflect the communities we serve, so we particularly encourage applications from under represented groups. If you'd like to discuss your application, please ask.

We also welcome individuals with lived experience relevant to the role or service area, as your insight brings authenticity to our services.

LSCFT supports flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours and flexi time.

• English language literacy and numeracy skills to the standard necessary to provide clear, understandable records.
• Willingness to develop self through engaging in training and or other special interest training.
• Completion of own personal recovery plan such as the Health and Wellbeing Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) and or advanced statement.

• Able to relate to a wide range of people, with excellent interpersonal skills.
• Self awareness and ability to question self and effectively reflect on practice.
• Able to manage conflict and to help others do so.

• Personal lived experience of mental health problems.
• Experience of recovering a meaningful life.
• Experience of being in a supportive and enabling role.

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

For all posts which require a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check please be aware of the Disclosure and Barring Service Code of Practice, a copy of which is available by logging on to the DBS website. If the post is subject to DBS disclosure, a charge will be made to the successful candidate(s).