Peer Support Worker | 306 North London NHS Foundation Trust

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a highly motivated and enthusiastic individual with lived experience of receiving care from Eating Disorder Services to join our team as a peer support worker. As a peer support worker you will be a valued member of the St Ann's Eating Disorder Service working alongside a highly skilled multi-disciplinary team. You will be able to share relevant personal experiences and draw on insights and skills developed through your own recovery to come alongside people using services on a one-to-one and group basis to explore peoples own goals and personalised recovery. This role will have a particular focus on Inpatient and Outpatient. It is anticipated this will be a dynamic role with lots of variation and will include tasks such as;

• Providing peer support during mealtimes (including eating with the individual you are working alongside)
• Supporting people to access groups and activities in their local communities
An individual may go through many service transitions during their recovery journey; the peer support worker in this role will predominantly be focusing on transitions between inpatient and outpatient. The post holder will embrace the core values of the organisation. These principles will recognise the need to:
• Promote safe practices
• Work in partnership and offer meaningful choice
• Be optimistic about the possibilities of meaningful change
• Value social inclusion
• To establish a supportive and respectful relationship with service users.
• Help individuals identify their own achievable and meaningful recovery goals and set recovery objectives, drawing on your mutual resources as peers and utilising a range of recovery tools, techniques and experience.
• Model personal responsibility, self-awareness, self-belief, self-advocacy and hopefulness via the appropriate sharing of own recovery story to inspire and instil confidence in service users.
• Assist service users in creating a Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) if used, and advanced directives to feed into the care planning process.
• Share / teach coping, self-help and self-management techniques within the peer relationship.
• Support service users to identify and overcome fears and within a relationship of empathy, trust and honesty, challenge negative self-talk.
Facilitate access to community groups and networks that enable service users to participate in community activities, in order to maximise opportunities for taking on socially valued roles and positive identity.
• Accompany service users, if appropriate, to appointments/meetings of their choice and perform a range of practical tasks, aligned to recovery goals.
• Act as a positive role model showing professional and caring attitudes and behaviour towards other multi-disciplinary team members, service users and carers.
North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT)is committed to improving mental health care across North London to deliver excellent services to our local people. Our Five-Year Strategy: 1. We will provide consistently high-quality care closer to home. 2. With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all 3. We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care. 4. We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology.