Job summary
Employer heading
Tutor Forensic Services/Employment Specialist
Band 6
West London NHS Trust provides a full range of mental health, community and physical healthcare services for children, adults and older people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow.
We also provide some specialist services that are commissioned regionally, such as our medium secure services; and nationally, such as the Cassel Hospital for people with complex and severe personality disorder and our high secure services at Broadmoor Hospital.
Job overview
The post-holder will support unemployed service users in the Specialist Community Forensic Team (SCFT) and rehabilitation inpatient wards, helping them explore and achieve personalized vocational goals. They will also assist individuals in retaining employment by working with employers. The role involves both individual and group interventions and close collaboration with the occupational therapy team to review functional capacity and create vocational profiles. Additionally, the post-holder will provide consultation and training to team members, offering guidance on employment-related issues like disclosure and legal rights.
The post involves conducting assessments and interventions on a commercial basis to generate income, aligned with the individual's expertise. The role also includes developing a service user apprenticeship program, supporting employment pathways, creating databases, and building connections with local community businesses. A deep understanding of employment barriers, particularly for individuals with disabilities, neurodiversity, and other challenges, is essential.
Main duties of the job
1) Vocational: To provide a range of vocational and profession specific input across the range of service users accessing the service.
· Ensure all interactions with service users should be underpinned with empathy and a clear understanding of the effects of disability in the area of vocational rehabilitation.
· Ensure all interventions are recovery-focused.
· Ensure all interactions are sensitive and responsive to the service users’ ethnic, cultural and social background, using a range of communication and engagement skills as appropriate to the context.
· To assist with critically evaluating referrals to the vocational service for intervention, particularly identifying priorities for intervention.
· To provide comprehensive vocational assessments, including functional capacity evaluations with the support of occupational therapy and job demands and transferable skills analysis, as appropriate.
· Interpret a range of complex clinical findings to develop appropriate intervention plans, intervention and evaluation of the vocational programme that includes risk
assessment with particular reference to service user need within the speciality and the requirement to promote personal recovery.
Further information is available via the candidate pack attached to this vacancy.
Working for our organisation
West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK.
Our 3,982 staff care for people in hospital and in the community, helping them to recover and go on to lead full and productive lives. We aim to be the best organisation of our kind in the country.
We provide care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units.
We’re rated good overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Together, we’re committed to promoting hope and wellbeing, working with patients, service users, carers, families and partners across the communities we serve.
We are keen to ensure that our workforce reflects the community it serves, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ and experience of mental illness.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The Vocational Support Specialist will assist unemployed service users in the Specialist Community Forensic Team (SCFT) and rehabilitation inpatient wards by helping them explore and achieve personalized vocational goals. The role involves individual and group interventions, collaboration with the occupational therapy team, and support for individuals in retaining employment through employer engagement.
Key Responsibilities:
- Conduct individual and group sessions to identify and pursue vocational aspirations.
- Collaborate with occupational therapists to assess functional capacity and create vocational profiles.
- Assist individuals in retaining employment by working with employers.
- Provide consultation and training to team members on employment-related issues, including disclosure and legal rights.
- Monitor and evaluate progress, adjusting strategies as necessary.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Higher education qualification in a related subject (eg. career guidance, information advice and guidance, human resources, counselling, training etc.), OT/psychology, or equivalent experience.
Desirable criteria
- Evidence of recent and ongoing relevant further training and professional development
Experience
Essential criteria
- Developing partnerships with other individuals or organisations
- Managing own workload
- Recording accurate data in electronic format
- Helping others to make their own decisions
- Working collaboratively within a team
Desirable criteria
- Carrying out employment needs assessments with individuals
- Providing information, advice and guidance
- Experience of working in a mental health setting
- Working within an employment service
- Liaising with employers to sustain employment including identifying reasonable adjustments in line with the equality act
Knowledge
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge about employment/health related benefits (e.g. ESA, UC, etc.)
- Employment law – knowledge of the Equality Act 2010 and employment rights
- Recruitment – professional knowledge of effective job search including creating an effective CV, applying for jobs in a variety of ways, answering interview questions, and job searching in the local area (London)
- Education and Training – basic knowledge of different types of courses and qualifications available in the UK
- Knowledge and skills in Motivational Interviewing
Skills
Essential criteria
- Computer skills – MS Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- Communication skills including presenting information in a range of formats for users and stakeholders, including the creation of presentations and reports
- Building confidence in others
- Building and maintaining effective relationships
- Accuracy and attention to detail
- Ability to work under pressure and maintain concentration
- Problem solving and solution focused in approach
- Self-motivated to work autonomously and independently with confidence when required
Desirable criteria
- Able to work flexibly to meet deadlines and prioritise greatest need
Other Requirements
Essential criteria
- Open to continuously developing and improving practice
- Exercise initiative, flexibility, tact and self-awareness
- Willing to use peer group supervision creatively
- Be aware of own limitations and seek appropriate senior advice and leadership
- Willing and able to travel within and potentially outside the catchment area in a timely manner in the course of the working day
- Personal experience of mental health conditions
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Tania Kumaresan
- Job title
- Clinical Lead OT Forensic Services
- Email address
- [email protected]
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