Esther Coach

Job summary

We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated Esther Coach to join our Portsmouth and South East Hampshire Division. This unique role is ideal for someone with significant lived experience of health, care or support services, either personally or as a carer, who wants to help shape and improve services for patients, service users and carers.

As an Esther Coach, you will champion patient, service user and carer involvement, ensuring lived experience influences service design, delivery, evaluation and continuous improvement. Working across a range of services, you will build strong relationships with service users, carers, staff and community partners to support meaningful co-production and positive change.

Key responsibilities include facilitating engagement activities and Esther Cafe's, gathering and communicating feedback, supporting teams to use learning from lived experience, and co-chairing the Divisional Service User Engagement and Co-production Subgroup. The role involves sensitive conversations about people's experiences and requires excellent communication, empathy and organisational skills.

You need to have completed, or be willing to complete, the HIOWH Esther Coach training, understand the Esther approach, can work independently, and is committed to improving services through inclusion, engagement and partnership working. Experience of facilitation, community engagement or participation work would be advantageous. If this is you, we would love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

The ESTHER Coach will work directly and exclusively in the PSEH Division whilst also delivering the role in partnership with the ESTHER Programme Lead.

The ESTHER Coach will support teams to establish, develop and sustain Esther Cafe's, creating safe and inclusive spaces where people using services, carers and staff can learn together from real experiences of care. The postholder will gather and share stories, identify themes and opportunities for improvement, and support services to translate learning into meaningful action.

Working under the leadership of the Chair of the PSEH User Engagement, Lived Experience & Co-production Sub Group and alongside the ESTHER Programme Lead, the postholder will help develop a network of ESTHER Champions across services and support the delivery of the wider ESTHER programme. They will act as a bridge between lived experience and operational teams, ensuring that people's stories, experiences and priorities remain at the heart of service development, delivery and improvement.

The role will promote collaborative working, continuous learning and person-centred improvement across organisational boundaries, ensuring that the voices of people using services influence how care is designed, delivered and evaluated.

At present, the Trust is unable to offer Skilled Worker visa sponsorship for this post. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK at the time of application.

About us

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides joined-up mental and physical healthcare for around two million people across our communities. With over 13,000 staff working in the community and local hospitals, we deliver care at every stage of life, helping people live their best and healthiest lives.

Our mental health services include community-based support and early intervention in psychosis (EIP) for both adults and young people, alongside a network of specialist inpatient wards covering forensic, learning disability, eating disorder and older person's care.

We deliver extensive physical health services too, from urgent community response teams helping frail and older patients remain safely at home, to hospitals at home teams providing acute-level care in familiar surroundings. Our neurological services offer rehabilitation and treatment for conditions including Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neurone Disease, Head Injury, Cerebral Palsy and Stroke. Across Hampshire, our community hospitals provide inpatient rehabilitation as a step down from acute care, and our dedicated teams also staff Treetops Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Portsmouth, offering expert, compassionate support.

Everything we do is underpinned by our CARE values of compassion, accountability, respect and excellence

Job responsibilities

The ESTHER Coach will work directly and exclusively in the PSEH Division whilst also delivering the role in partnership with the ESTHER Programme Lead.

The ESTHER Coach will support teams to establish, develop and sustain Esther Cafe's, creating safe and inclusive spaces where people using services, carers and staff can learn together from real experiences of care. The postholder will gather and share stories, identify themes and opportunities for improvement, and support services to translate learning into meaningful action.

Working under the leadership of the Chair of the PSEH User Engagement, Lived Experience & Co-production Sub Group and alongside the ESTHER Programme Lead, the postholder will help develop a network of ESTHER Champions across services and support the delivery of the wider ESTHER programme. They will act as a bridge between lived experience and operational teams, ensuring that people's stories, experiences and priorities remain at the heart of service development, delivery and improvement.

The role will promote collaborative working, continuous learning and person-centred improvement across organisational boundaries, ensuring that the voices of people using services influence how care is designed, delivered and evaluated.

A key part of the role will be co-chairing the divisional Service User Engagement and Co-production Subgroup alongside a staff co-chair. The postholder will also undertake visits to services across the division to promote engagement activity, support the development of Esther Cafe's and help teams use learning from people's experiences to inform quality improvement.

The postholder will work independently across a range of services, teams and care settings within the division. They will build constructive working relationships with service users, carers, staff and community partners to support meaningful involvement in service development, delivery and improvement.

The postholder will use judgement, initiative and practical knowledge of engagement and co-production to identify opportunities to strengthen service user involvement, reduce barriers to participation and support services to make better use of lived experience feedback.

The postholder will organise and manage their own workload across multiple services and workstreams, working within agreed objectives and reporting progress to their line manager.

Communication and Engagement -

*Build effective working relationships with staff, service users, carers, community organisations and stakeholders.

*Present stories, themes, feedback and learning to relevant meetings and groups.

*Communicate effectively with people from diverse backgrounds.

*Maintain accurate records of activities, actions and outcomes.

*Use Trust communication systems and digital platforms appropriately.

*Participate in supervision, mentoring and development opportunities.

Professional Responsibilities -

*Work within Trust policies, procedures and professional boundaries.

*Maintain confidentiality and information governance standards.

*Promote equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility.

*Undertake relevant ESTHER training and development.

*Participate in supervision, appraisal and continuing professional development.

Act as a positive role model for person-centred practice, lived experience involvement and co-production

Working with the ESTHER Programme Lead

*Work closely with the ESTHER Programme Lead to support delivery of the divisional ESTHER programme.

*Support the implementation of ESTHER priorities, objectives and improvement initiatives.

*Meet regularly with the ESTHER Programme Lead to review progress, share learning and identify opportunities for development.

*Assist with the development and growth of Esther Cafe's across services.

*Support the recruitment, development and networking of ESTHER Champions.

*Share stories, themes and learning gathered from people using services, carers and staff to inform programme priorities.

*Work with the ESTHER Programme Lead to ensure learning from Esther Cafe's and lived experience activity is translated into meaningful service improvements.

*Act as an ambassador for the ESTHER programme and its values.

Support the Chair of the PSEH User Engagement, Lived Experience & Co-production Sub Group to build and sustain a network of ESTHER Champions across PSEH.

Influence and support staff across services to adopt ESTHER principles.

Coach and encourage teams to establish and sustain Esther Cafe's

Support staff, volunteers, peer support workers and people with lived experience to participate in ESTHER activities.

Promote the use of stories and feedback as drivers for improvement

Support teams to identify themes and learning from Esther Cafe activity and consider how these may inform local improvement.

Further information about the Trust and this role can be found on the Job Description and Person Specification document attached. It is important to us that we ensure our recruitment processes are accessible and inclusive to everyone - if as a potential candidate you are concerned a person specification may prevent or restrict your application for employment as a result of unintentional barriers on the grounds of your sex, race, age, sexual orientation, religion/belief or disability please initially contact the Trust's Recruitment team - detailed in the advert. The Trust will seek to resolve this issue wherever possible.

We are happy to talk Flexible Working - all requests for flexible working options can be discussed as part of the interview process.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Level 3 Qualification in Health or Social Care related subject or equivalent experience.
• Relevant qualifications or demonstratable competence in a range of IT systems.

Experience

Essential

• Understanding of service user engagement, participation and co-production.
• Understanding of inclusion, accessibility and reducing barriers to involvement.
• Have awareness of person-centred approaches to service improvement.
• Ability to work independently across a range of services and settings.
• Ability to organise and prioritise workloads effectively.
• Ability to build positive working relationships with people from a range of professional and personal backgrounds.
• Good communication, listening and facilitation skills. Able to deliver multi faced information to a wide spectrum of stakeholders.
• Ability to share feedback with others across a range of mediums.
• Ability to identify themes, record actions and communicate learning clearly.
• Ability to use judgement and initiative within agreed boundaries.
• Understanding of the ESTHER model and philosophy.
• Be willing and able to complete the HIOWH ESTHER coaches training.
• Significant lived experience of health, care or support services, either personally or as a carer.
• In depth experience of using lived experience constructively to support improvement, engagement or participation.

Desirable

• Experience of facilitating groups, workshops or meetings.
• Experience of community engagement, peer support or participation work.
• Experience of health, social care, voluntary sector or community settings.
• Experience of presenting learning and feedback to groups.
• Coaching or mentoring skills.
• Experience of supporting change and improvement activities.
• Knowledge of the Esther approach.
• Awareness of quality improvement methods.