Job summary
Employer heading
Transition/18-25 Social Worker
NHS AfC: Band 6
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides specialist mental health, learning disability, and community healthcare services for the population of the Black Country.
Across the whole of the region we provide:
- Adult and older adult mental health services
- Specialist learning disability services
- Mental health services for children and young people
- Community healthcare services for children, young people and families in Dudley
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was formed on 1 April 2020, with the merger of Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. Combining resources, strategies and talented workforce enables us to deliver a wider variety of outstanding services that are based on best practice and are continually improving.
We currently employ over 4,000 people and just like the population we serve, we are made up of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Whatever your role, working in a NHS Foundation Trust, like ours, is a demanding and extremely rewarding experience. Knowing that every day you can help to make a positive difference to someone’s life is a very powerful feeling. We know that our Trust runs on this desire to help and support people, and our Trust vision expresses this. Our vision is to improve health and wellbeing for everyone, especially our colleagues to achieve the best possible work/life balance.
We proudly offer supportive, inclusive and family friendly employment and flexible working policies. We have a wide range of professional services and employee networks to help our colleagues be at their best - and find support if they need it. To find more about our staff benefits, please visit our website: blackcountryhealthcare.nhs.uk.
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and ethnic minority candidates are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Black Country Healthcare we recognise and value all forms of knowledge and expertise, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification or criteria in the job description/person specification, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
For further supporting information to help you apply for this role please see documents attached under ‘Additional documents’.
Job overview
This is an exciting time to join the Black Country Healthcare Foundation Trust to be part of the mental health transformation! You are invited to join a new service that has been co-produced with young people (roughly 18-25 years) that will work across health, social care and the voluntary sector for young adults across the region.
This provision will ‘wrap around’ services already offered. The model includes pathways to assist transitions between CAMHS and AMHS (child and adult mental health services), enhanced provision for young adults from ‘currently disadvantaged’ groups, and a robust set of wellbeing enhancing community resources for young people and the most significant adults in their lives.
Main duties of the job
Our mission is to enable all young people of the Black Country to reach their potential and flourish, with the young person’s voice being at the centre of what is provided. The service has been designed to be based on needs, offering choice and increased access and inclusivity. The team philosophy is that young people are empowered as much as possible – this will include building upon their strengths, being assisted to develop their own narrative to make sense of their distress and to make personally meaningfully goals, with help to keep on track with these. We aim to be collaborative and to give more power to the young people we work with and to learn from them. We recognise that each individual in distress is unique and the expert of his or her own experience and what is helpful, and that as professionals it would often be useful for us to be more humble about the limits of our knowledge.
Working for our organisation
As a professional Transition/18-25 worker within the team, you will use and promote an empowering, relational, trauma informed approach within all your interactions. You will work with young people 1:1 and attend joint appointments with CAMHS and AMHS to bridge the transition and to support access to a range of community resources. There will be several ‘pathways’ that young people can choose between and you will work within one of these initially. You will offer some input to your local ‘young person hub’ and liaise with social care and the voluntary care sector in relation to disadvantaged young adults who are accessing additional support with the team. Awareness of and engagement with opportunities within the community will be facilitated, ensuring that young people are better connected and enabled to build a strong identity and to work towards the young person’s desired future.
On-going co-production and young person oversight has been built into the service and we hope to embed transformational change, for example by recruiting people with the values that fit with our team philosophy and offering relevant training, supervision and support and ensuring team wellbeing. The service will share knowledge and good practice across the Black Country to promote a young person friendly culture.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
In addition to aligning with the values above, young people have said that they would like team members to be:
- Open minded
- Honest
- Caring and empathic
- Thoughtful (treat every situation seriously and thoroughly)
- Flexible, do things differently as needed
- Patient/ to have perseverance
- Peer support workers should be ‘young spirited’ and relatable
We have agreed that we would like the team to be as diverse as possible to reflect our communities and to enhance innovative practice and we would encourage you to share any knowledge and experiences that you believe would provide added value within the team.
We hope that this provides a useful overview but we would love to hear from you so that we can discuss the service and opportunities with you in more detail.
Interviews will be held from Friday 18th August 2023
Positions available within Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Walsall, Dudley
The work will be primarily face to face rather than home based.
Person specification
Essential
Essential criteria
- YOU MUST HAVE PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR THIS POSITION (for example you may be an Occupational Therapist, Social Worker, Speech and Language Therapist, Allied Health Professional).
- Experience of working with people in significant distress
- Knowledge of at least one psychological approach
- Ability to work in an empowering and flexible manner
Desirable criteria
- Significant skills engaging young people, which may include interest and skills related to art, music and/or other creative activities.
- Having worked in a helping capacity with disadvantaged groups such as people who have been in care, the homeless, those who have experienced significant trauma and/or adversity, minority cultural backgrounds, those with disabilities, neurodevelopmental presentations, alcohol and/or substance misuse
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
- Louise Glover
- Job title
- Clinical Transformation Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07920871554
- Additional information
Louise Glover (Clinical Transformation Lead, Children, Young People and Families)
Email: [email protected], Tel: 07920871554
Sarah Hogan (Deputy Director, Children, Young People and Families)
Email: [email protected], Tel: 07738649116
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