Peer Support Worker - Harm Minimisation Substance Use

We are excited to be able to offer a unique opportunity in South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation trust to take up a role as a Peer Support Worker (PSW) in the Forensic Services Pathway. These roles have become available through funding for Patient & Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) project funding. PCREF is a Trust-wide initiative to improve equity in access, experience, and outcomes for all our communities, with an initial focus on Black communities. The contribution of this PSW role is to work with Community Forensic Mental Health Teams (CFMHT) to support culturally congruent harm minimisation approaches to service users who use substances. Funding is available for 4 days a week (0.8wte) fixed term, initially, from 1st October 2024 until 30 June 2025. We envisage that there will be two or more postholders, each based in one CFMHT team local to the successful applicant. Candidates will be asked as to their preferred location at interview., We are looking for Peer Support Workers to join us until the end of June 2025 on a fixed term contract.The role will be supported bythe Peer Support Coordinator within the Directorate., The aim of this role is to support Black patients in forensic services. The role will focus on enhancing the effectiveness of substance use interventions within forensic services by integrating cultural awareness and peer support. It involves collaborating with service users, carers, and their families, and where possible to design and deliver services. This support will involve peer support and advocacy ensuring that patients' voices are heard. Substance Use Support Workers will use their own lived experiences of mental health issues/services and substance use difficulties to help others, providing a space where individuals feel respected, accepted, and understood. They will understand that everyone's experience will be unique but will treat everyone's experience as being equally important. This role will need individuals who acknowledge the inherent challenges of racism for Black communities within traditional mental health services. The role will also involve encouraging Black service
users and carers to coproduce care plans and advocate for themselves; gathering information to inform them of their options and providing formal feedback to staff in secure settings.

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) provide the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK as well as substance misuse services for people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We work closely with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London and are part of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre. There are very few organizations in the world that have such wide-ranging capabilities working with mental illness. Our scope is unique because it is built on three major foundations: care and treatment, science and research, and training.