Social Activity Worker

NHS; Liverpool; On-site; GBP 22,000 - 32,000; Full time

Job description

This is an exciting, newly developed role, within the Life Rooms Learning Service.

The Learning Service is one of the pillars that contributes to The Life Rooms Social Model of Health. The Learning Service aims to increase knowledge, skills and confidence among learners accessing courses.

The Social Activity Workers will work in a team alongside Learning and Skills Facilitators, Health and Wellbeing Coaches, Health Educators and Health Activation Lead.

Main duties of the job

The Social Activity Worker will plan and facilitate a range of socially focused activities that encourage people to attend and gain confidence within the Life Rooms settings (Lee Valley, Walton, Bootle and Southport) and some clinical and community settings. The role will require travel across the Liverpool and Sefton footprint.

The Social Activity Worker will ensure that activities offered are varied and inclusive and offer a progression towards increased confidence. The Social Activity Worker will ensure that Service Users have the opportunity to contribute to the development of activities.

The Social Activity Workers will bring relevant experience relating to creative arts or activities that can be translated into the facilitation of a related group learning activity.

About us

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.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Job responsibilities

1. Be able to confidently articulate the Activation through Learning Model, and how it contributes to the learning pillar within The Social Model of Health
2. Understand principles of prevention, population health, behaviour change and activation
3. Be able to identify the social determinants of health and how these can impact health and wellbeing
4. Plan and facilitate a range of socially focussed activities and encourage people to attend and gain confidence within The Life Rooms environment across The Life Rooms footprint.
5. Ensure social activities are inclusive and accessible to people from a range of backgrounds and those with additional needs.
6. Ensure service activity data is collected effectively and inputted accurately into service recording systems.
7. Contribute towards service enrolment and engagement days to support promotion and uptake of the learning offer.
8. To support co-production and co-facilitation of socially focussed activities and work alongside volunteers to support service provision.
9. Complete all administration processes relating to the learning offer including The Life Rooms membership, course booking processes, gathering user feedback, completing outcome measures, use of the Elemental database, producing course materials and resources relevant to social activities.
10. Support students mental wellbeing during learning programmes by managing exposure to sensitive and emotional content, experiences and materials.
11. Be confident in supporting emotional and mental distress in a calm and empathetic manner.
12. Be confident in managing challenging behaviour and conversations whilst maintaining professional boundaries and supportive relationships.
13. Responsible for taking appropriate immediate action following incidents and subsequent reporting and completion of Trust documentation. This will include areas such as complaints, safeguarding, adverse incidents etc.
14. Take ownership for personal and professional development, engaging with training opportunities and supervision processes within the service.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Qualification in special interest subject or relevant experience relating to creative arts and activities
• English and Maths GCSE

Knowledge

• Knowledge of mental health conditions and how these may present
• Understand how to support people to develop confidence in social contexts
• Knowledge of cultural differences that could impact engagement and delivery styles
• Understanding of co-production and its value in designing and delivering groups activities

Experience

• Experience facilitating group activities
• Experience in creating materials and resources suited to a range of learning needs, styles and preferences
• Experience working with people with mental health or physical health problems

Skills

• Ability to plan and facilitate social activities
• Ability to build effective relationships with Service Users whilst maintaining professional boundaries
• Excellent communication skills to support confidence building
• Ability to support and manage emotional and mental distress
• Ability to deal with safeguarding issues effectively
• Ability to maintain professional boundaries
• Ability to work as part of a team and autonomously when required
• Empathetic and compassionate

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer name

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Multiple sites across Liverpool and Sefton - Main base Walton Life Rooms