Employment Specialist

An exciting opportunity has arisen for 1 x full time Band 5 Employment Specialist for the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Services in Halton and Warrington . The IPS service supports Mersey Care service users with severe and enduring mental health conditions who are under Community Mental Health and/or Early Intervention Teams and are looking for paid employment as part of their recovery journey. The post holders will be expected to adhere rigorously to the national and international IPS model. The IPS Teams are situated under the portfolio of The Life Rooms.

The Employment Specialists will be expected to travel across an identified geographical patch for meetings with clinical teams and the staff who will be co-located there, with service users, and with local employers.

The post holders will benefit from being a part of The Life Rooms services and will have the support of peers within The Life Rooms Teams.

We would expect applicants to have demonstrable experience of supporting individuals into paid employment and to be confident in liaising with employers to gain access to work opportunities in the local area. Some prior knowledge of the IPS model would be advantageous.

Shortlisting Planned for- 25 November 2024

Interviews Planned for - 2 December 2024, The Employment Specialist will join an Individual Placement and Support Team (IPS) working under the direction of the IPS Employment Services Manager to deliver IPS as part of the holistic recovery plan for mental health service users.

The post holder will work directly with employers to secure employment opportunities for people who have experienced mental health problems, and subsequently provide ongoing support depending on employee's and employer's needs. The aim will be to enable people who have experienced mental health problems to gain and retain paid employment.

The Employment Specialists will be responsible for:

Working directly with the clinical teams in which they are co-located to generate referrals into the service

Managing a caseload of a maximum of 25 service users at any one time (full time posts) to support them into appropriate paid employment

Working directly with employers to secure employment opportunities for people who have experienced mental health problems

Providing ongoing support dependent upon employee and employer needs

Recording their daily activity in line with the IPS requirements

Additionally, the post holder will work directly with all relevant stakeholders: the service user, Employment Specialist colleagues, community staff, Consultant Psychiatrists and employers - the aim is to enable the majority of the service users on the caseload to gain and retain paid employment.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.