CYP Parent/Carer Peer Support Worker

Job summary

Are you a parent/carer with lived experience of supporting your child through mental health services as an adolescent? Do you want to use your lived experience to help other parent/carers?

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a passionate, self-motivated individual with this lived experience to join our award-winning CYP Peer Support team based in Boston (covering south of the county) on a 12-month fixed-term contract.

Parent/carer peer support workers (PSWs) provide emotional support and practical assistance to parent/carers with a child a currently open to CYP Mental Health Services. Through drawing from and sharing their own experiences, a parent/carer PSW will inspire hope and support families to feel hopeful about the future.

Recognising the pivotal role parent/carers play in supporting their child's mental health, and the emotional impact of caring for a child experiencing emotional distress, this role involves providing a listening ear, exploring parental wellbeing, and supporting parent/carers to access support in their local community.

As this role will involve working across different teams in CYP services (Healthy Minds, Mental Health Support Teams, CAMHS) and supporting service user participation, we are looking for individuals with good communication skills and a passion for co-producing and improving mental health services

If you would like to know more about this role, please contact Abbie Futter (CAMHS Peer Support Lead) on 01522 535189.

Main duties of the job

To model principles of hope, recovery and self-belief in all aspects of their work with young people and families.

Act as a role model, showing a professional and caring attitude toward children, young people and families, and other professionals and colleagues.

Share coping, self-help and self-management techniques with parent/carers and children, young people in an appropriate and supportive manner.

Where appropriate, to provide guidance and practical support to parent/carers to better enable them to support their child/young person's plan of care/treatment.

Recognising the emotional impact of caring for somebody experiencing significant distress, provide emotional support and a listening ear for parent/carers.

Provide lived experience perspective through participating in parent/carer therapy groups, helping parent/carers believe they are not alone and that change is possible.

Developing and co-facilitating parent/carer groups, including parent peer support groups (likely to be out of 9-5 hours).

Guiding parent/carers through periods of transition (i.e. when their child is transitioning out of, or across, services)

In line with the Triangle of Care initiative, support enhanced communication and collaboration between parents/carers and mental health professionals, and ensure that parent/carers have all the right information to support the recovery of their child/young person.

Support parent/carers to identify and access support within their local community.

About us

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health services and a number of learning disability, autism and social care services in the county of Lincolnshire. Employing around 2,800 staff, and serving a population of over 766,000, our people lie at the heart of everything we do.

You could be part of a Trust rated by staff as one of the best mental health and learning disability trusts in England, in an area heralded as a fantastic place to live and work. We firmly believe the key to high quality care is a contented workforce. This is reflected in our Care Quality Commission rating of 'outstanding' for well-led and 'good' overall. In the most recent National NHS Staff Survey, our staff rated us as the number one trust nationally for staff morale and one of the top scoring NHS Trusts in the Midlands for being compassionate and inclusive. We're really proud of this!

We are also leading the way in transforming care, with multi-million-pound transformation of patient environments and radical redesign of community services.

This is the time to join and help redesign our services of the future. We offer options for flexible working and provide a wide range of training and promotion opportunities in all professions. We support and celebrate diversity, have active staff networks groups and are always looking at what more we can do to support our staff.

Job responsibilities

Due to the UKVI immigration changes we are no longer able to offer sponsorship for this role. Please provide details of the visa type and expiry date in your application. Failure to provide the required information will result in your application being rejected.

Please view the attached Job Description and Person Specification documents for complete details regarding this post.

When completing your application, please demonstrate how you meet the role criteria.

We can also offer you many staff benefits to help support you which include:

Early access to Psychological Therapies and Physiotherapy

Competitive annual leave allowance

Car leasing scheme

NHS pension scheme

Free eye tests

Money saving options through our salary sacrifice scheme

Discounts on major high street retailers and restaurants

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Satisfactory level of Secondary education to GCSE English A-C grade or 9-4 grade or equivalent (may be working toward this).
• Be able to demonstrate a good standard of English.
• Willingness to undertake further training to support development of peer support role, and child and young person's involvement.

Desirable

• Level of education to NVQ 3/AS level or equivalent
• Mental Health or Health and Social Care related qualification

Experience

Essential

• Lived experience of being a parent/carer to someone experiencing mental health issues
• Lived experience of being a parent/carer to someone who has accessed mental health services, preferably children and young person (CYP) mental health services
• Experience of using a range of self-management or recovery tools and techniques
• Experience of being employed in a role supporting or mentoring others
• Experience of working in a team or group environment
• oExperience of using a range of self-management or recovery tools and techniques

Desirable

• Experience working in a setting supporting children and young people
• Experience of working across different organisational boundaries

Skills

Essential

• Good written, verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
• Able to confidently use a computer.
• Ability to demonstrate knowledge of personal recovery principles and values
• An ability to recognise and manage own stress. Ability to demonstrate and model self-care skills
• Able to demonstrate a non-judgemental, respectful attitude toward others
• Understanding of service user involvement and participation and why it is important
• An ability to recognise and manage own stress. Ability to demonstrate and model self-care skills
• Willingness to reflect on work practice and be open to constructive feedback
• Good organisational skills, including time management
• Willingness to reflect on work practice and be open to constructive feedback
• Be able to ask for help
• Ability to work creatively and use initiative
• Ability to work well within a team