Social Worker

An opportunity has arisen for a Social Work Practitioner in the Community Care Division of Mersey Care, within the ICRAS/Liverpool Out of Hospital Social Work Team. As a result, we are looking to recruit an experienced social work practitioner to be part of this and help us to deliver our community discharge, admission avoidance and reablement services. We are a highly motivated and passionate social care team who are dedicated to the delivery of high quality, person centred, strength based and empowering assessments and care. That means having a passion for social work, enabling effective integrated working with our health colleagues, promoting independence through reablement approaches.

You will be responsible for carrying out social work duties in a fast paced environment, requiring the highest levels of skills, knowledge and professional expertise. You will ensure the delivery of effective, safe integrated services for adults through the promotion of high standards of practice in assessments and person centred planning, being creative to meet individual outcomes.

Main duties of the job

The post is based at Longmoor House (therapy rehabilitation unit) and is part of the wider team which includes community, bed based and hospital social work. You will have the main duties of assessing and supporting service users to promote independence and support with discharge planning.

The successful candidate will have the ability to deliver an efficient and high quality social work service, have well developed assessment and analytical skills and demonstrate knowledge of Social Care legislation to promote asset and strengths based care planning/interventions. You will bring in-depth knowledge about Adult Social Care, strong interpersonal and organisational skills. You will be able to practice within a fast paced environment and work to deadlines, working with considerable autonomy.

In return we will invest in you with regular supervision, a balanced workload, access to good training and further career opportunities such as the Practice Educator Course, ASYE programme and AMHP/BIA training.

You will enter the Trust with a starting pay grade and Job Description at BAND 6 AFC.

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

• To manage a complex caseload of service users and complete assessments to support the appropriate discharge pathway.
• To contribute to assessment and care management process within a multi-disciplinary team.
• To co-ordinate care in the context of relevant health and social care legislation and policy frameworks including but not limited to: The Care Act 2014, Mental Health Act 1983/2007, Mental Capacity Act 2005, Human Rights Act 1998, Interagency Adult Safeguarding policies and procedures, CHC Framework/Guidance.
• To make service users aware of financial contributions, to provide information enabling service users to make an informed choice.
• Assessing and commissioning packages of care, residential and nursing placements.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Recognised qualification in Social Work at certificate or Diploma level e.g DipSW, CQSW or CSS.
• Social Work England Registration.
• Masters Degree (MSW) or Post Graduate (PGDipSW).
• Best Interest Assessor Qualification or willingness to undertake training.
• Practice Educator Award or willingness to undertake training.
• Approved Mental Health Professional Qualification.

Knowledge/Experience

• Experience as a Social Worker in a health/social care setting.
• Good working knowledge of legislative guidance and policy frameworks including but not limited to: Care Act 2014, Mental Health Act 1983/2007, Mental Capacity Act 2005, Continuing Health Care, Interagency Adult Safeguarding policies and procedures.
• Knowledge and application of professional standards, codes of conduct and SW England standards of proficiency.
• Good working understanding of Information Governance, Data Protection and confidentiality.
• Ability to assess and manage complex cases in a multidisciplinary team setting.
• Skilled at assessing need, coordination and review of support plans.
• Skilled at assessing and implementing risk management frameworks.
• Skilled at assessing and promoting the involvement of people in developing their own care/support plans using a strengths and asset based approach.
• An understanding of diversity and how it affects practice.
• Experience of supervising others.

Skills

• To be able to practice safely and effectively within scope of practice.
• To be able to practice within the legal and ethical boundaries of Social Work profession.
• Understand the key concepts of the knowledge base relevant to Social Work profession.
• Be able to draw on appropriate knowledge and skills to inform practice.
• Develop written documents including report writing relevant for practice.
• An ability to manage time, prioritise work and meet deadlines.
• To be able to practice as an autonomous professional.
• To be able to communicate effectively.
• To be able to build compassionate and effective relationships.
• To be able to maintain records appropriately.

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.