Specialist Substance Use Worker

The transformation of community forensic services at West London NHS Trust has seen the development of the new Specialist Community Forensic Team. Following a successful pilot programme beginning in 2020 the SCFT has now expanded across all 8 North West London Boroughs.

The Specialist Community Forensic Team works to transition service users out of secure settings, and support their ongoing recovery in the community. This can improve quality of life, reduce inequality, and give hope to people who may have been detained for many years.

We are looking for an individual who will work alongside the SCFT Care Coordinators; Social Supervisors and Medical colleagues and will follow up patients who have been discharged into the community and have a history or ongoing issues with substance misuse. Working within a multidisciplinary team, the post holder will operate with high levels of autonomy across the eight boroughs covered by SCFT, liaising and working alongside care coordinators; social supervisors; medical colleagues and other agencies to implement specialist care packages for dual diagnosis individuals who have been detained in secure care., The post holder will hold a core professional qualification, and will have significant experience of work in both a forensic setting and with those who misuse substances, and an active interest in the development, evaluation and monitoring of an innovative substance misuse service tailored to the needs of forensic patients.

The post holder will work closely with the forensic drug & alcohol support service (DASS), which provides assessment/interventions to the in-patient forensic wards and community forensic service users under the care of the Specialist Community Forensic Team (SCFT). The post holder will receive clinical supervision from the DASS senior clinical nurse and Line Management from the SCFT Nursing Team Manager.

The post holder will work as part of the ground-breaking new team that will improve the lives of forensic mental health service users and their carers. This is a rare chance to be part of shaping a new service, providing opportunities to develop one's skills and one's career.

West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK.

Our 3,982 staff care for people in hospital and in the community, helping them to recover and go on to lead full and productive lives. We aim to be the best organisation of our kind in the country.

We provide care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units.

We'rerated good overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Together, we're committed to promoting hope and wellbeing, working with patients, service users, carers, families and partners across the communities we serve.

We are keen to ensure that our workforce reflects the community it serves, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ and experience of mental illness.