Acacia Family Support Has a New Opportunity for Two Self-Motivated and Enthusiastic Individuals

Acacia Family Support Has a New Opportunity for Two Self-Motivated and Enthusiastic Individuals

Job advert

Acacia Family Support has a new opportunity for two self-motivated and enthusiastic individuals to join our committed team to set up and develop a pioneering new project that will support young parents across Birmingham affected by pre and postnatal depression.

Acacia Family Support is an award-winning Birmingham based Christian charity that offers a range of support services to mothers and families that are affected by pre and postnatal depression. We offer a unique menu of support from our 4 centres across Birmingham and in our beneficiaries’ homes. We aim to offer hope, healing and reassurance for mothers or fathers affected by this debilitating illness. Acacia Family Support is the only organisation in the West Midlands area to offer individual and group support services in the heart of local communities. Users of our services can access support for as long as they need it.

With funding from Forward Thinking Birmingham, we are now looking to expand our service and offer a targeted support service to young parents.

We are looking for two exceptional individuals who are passionate about supporting young people with mental health issues.

You will set up and establish a new programme of work that provides direct support to young parents affected by perinatal mental health issues, in particular pre and postnatal depression and work with voluntary and statutory sector colleagues to ensure the provision of high quality psychological interventions for young parents affected by perinatal mental health issues through, training, advice, joint working and support.

BACKGROUND TO THE POST

About Acacia family Support

Acacia Family Support is a registered charity and Company Limited by Guarantee. Established in 2004, it operates across Birmingham. Acacia’s mission is to:

“Improve the lives of mothers and families affected by pre- and post- natal depression (PND)”

Mental health problems are common both during pregnancy and following childbirth, and can be very serious. Perinatal mental health has been recognised in recent years as a major public health concern. The most common perinatal mental health problem is postnatal depression (PND), with rates ranging between 13% in the first few weeks to 20% in the first year after the birth.

In response to this, Acacia Family Support has, for the past twelve years, been running centres and delivering support services to women and families across Birmingham affected by Antenatal and Postnatal Depression. Support services include (all free of charge):

  • 1-1 Befriending - predominately listening support using common factor skills with a compassionate focus, problem solving, support adjusting to becoming a mum etc. Signposting, organising respite care, advocacy work.
  • Group work : Psycho-educational peri-natal workshops looking at strategies to help overcome low mood andanxietyusing cognitive behavioural techniques with a session focusing purelyon strengthening relationships.
  • Childcare: Provided to care for babies whilst mums are accessing support.
  • Transport : Where venues are difficult to travel to, or if mumis finding it difficult to leave her home.
  • Helping Hands at Home Service:
  • ​Befriending home visits​
  • Aromatherapy Massage
  • Osteopathy
  • Laundry Service
  • Cleaning service
  • Dads support : 1-1 Befriending and signposting
  • Services are delivered across Birmingham from the following locations:-
  • ​Adderley Children’s Centre - East - Washwood Heath
  • Elim Church - North - Kingstanding
  • Northfield Baptist Church - South - Northfield
  • St Johns Church Walmley - North - Sutton Coldfield

Acacia is a volunteer led organisation that uses a team of 30+ trained volunteers with lived experience of mental health issues to deliver weekly individual befriending sessions. A significant feature of Acacia’s work is the ability to offer a level of additional support and hospitality that goes beyond ‘mainstream’ provision. Specifically, Acacia works to alleviate the barriers to engaging with services, providing free childcare at an onsite crèche and assistance with transportation costs. This type of support is rarely available to beneficiaries engaging with mainstream, statutory services.

Acacia’s services are funded by a mixture of NHS contracts, the BIG Lottery, grants from trusts and foundations and individual giving.

Acacia Family Support is a Christian faith based organisation and it is our faith that commits us to serve others by aspiring to the principles and standards of excellence in community work, and to our values of Integrity, Diversity, Distinctiveness and Accountability.

About the role

Forward Thinking Birmingham (FTB) is a newmental healthpartnership, led byBirmingham Children’s Hospital, which aims to transform Birmingham’s mental health care for children and young adults up to the age of 25. FTB have commissioned Acacia to provide direct support and guidance to young parents (school age to 25) affected by perinatal mental health issues, in particular pre and postnatal depression. This will include both individual support and group work activities & the development of specialist perinatal mental Health resources and teaching materials for workforce development.

The postholders will be responsible for delivering a flexible and professional client focussed service across Birmingham that is efficient and effective and meets the objectives of the agreement between FTB and Acacia. The postholders are responsible for ensuring that all service targets are met and exceeded.

The postholders will work closely with Acacia’s other operations staff and will be line managed by Acacia’s Operations Director (currently being recruited for). Acacia is currently undergoing a restructure of its senior management team and as such applicants must be flexible, adaptable and willing to work in a newly established team of operations staff.

We are a Christian organization providing support services across Birmingham to women with postnatal depression and we are looking for candidates who are flexible in their approach to work, non-judgmental and can interact with a wide variety of people. You will be working in an often hectic, face paced and unpredictable environment. Someone who is open, adaptable and has a good sense of humour would fit well with our organisation!

Please note: Acacia is currently not in a position to pay for travel expenses to/from your place of work. For travel that is required in addition to your place of work, Acacia will reimburse your travel expenses in line with their expenses policy. Generally, we expect you to have no more than one place of work in any given day. However if this was required, Acacia would reimburse your travel to additional locations.

Job description: Young parents perinatal mental health practitioner ( 2 positions available) Posts are currently funded until May 2018.

Location: Acacia’s Head Office and outreach services as required across Birmingham

Accountable to: Operations Director

Salary: £24,000 per annum pro rata

Hours: 0.6 FTE 24 hours per week. Please note Acacia works to a 40 hour week.

Leave: 33 days including bank holidays

Contract: Fixed term until May 2018

Main objectives

Working at all times in accordance with Acacia’s Mission, ethos and values, you will:

  1. Set up and establish a new programme of work that provides direct support to young parents affected by perinatal mental health issues, in particular pre and postnatal depression. This will include the development of new online and printed resources that will provide support and offer information to clients of the service.
  2. Work with voluntary and statutory sector colleagues to ensure the provision of high quality psychological interventions for young parents affected by perinatal mental health issues through, training, advice, joint working and support to professionals as appropriate.

Key responsibilities

Service Delivery: direct support

  • Provide individual, group work and telephone support to a caseload of young parents ( from school age to 25) affected by perinatal mental health issues, in particular pre and postnatal depression.
  • Undertake initial assessments of potential users of our services, and develop an appropriate care plan in response to their needs.
  • Comply with Acacia’s clinical governance protocols and implementation of good practice, including Acacia’s clinical policies and standards.
  • Liaise with internal and external colleagues to provide assessment, referrals and treatment on complex issues such as child protection and risk.
  • Oversee the implementation of Acacia’s risk management procedures across the project, ensuring staff and volunteers are appropriately trained and understand the clinical risks involved in supporting families affected by Postnatal Depression
  • Maintain appropriate records of assessments, any clinical/casework work undertaken, including all relevant information about client’s circumstances, using Acacia’s database and make information available for Audit & Evaluation purposes.
  • Provide reports and other clinical documents to the standard required by both Acacia’s Board of Trustees and Forward Thinking Birmingham.
  • In line with Acacia’s existing volunteer programme, recruit and train a small team of volunteers to help provide befriending, peer support and group work activities to the target age group.
  • Line manage and support all volunteers connected to the project.
  • Develop innovative and creative online and printed resources that will appeal to the target age group and support their recovery.

Service delivery: Awareness raising and training Birmingham’s voluntary and statutory sector

  • Design and deliver appropriate training packages to voluntary and statutory sector mental health, counselling and support services across Birmingham who either provide a service to young parents or who have the potential to deliver a service. Training packages and workshops will focus on raising awareness of perinatal mental health issues and promote new ways of working for practitioners focusing on the impact perinatal mental health issues can have on a child’s long term mental health & psychological development.
  • Identify voluntary and statutory sector agencies in need of training and undertake development work to encourage and support agencies to participate in training on supporting young parents affected by perinatal mental health issues..
  • To work with such services to establish clear referral pathways for young parents affected by perinatal mental health issues, gaps in service provision and strategies for filling those gaps

Data and Information management

  • Working closely with Acacia’s business director and admin team manager, collect and submit the correct data on clients in accordance with Acacia’s monitoring and evaluation framework and the specific monitoring requirements of Forward Thinking Birmingham.
  • Ensure Acacia’s policies and procedures around data protection and confidentiality are followed at all times

General

  • To work alongside the Acacia senior management team to develop and promote Acacia Family Support.
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding, legislation, national and local policies and procedures in relation to Mental Health, Primary Care, and Employment Services,
  • Take responsibility for own health and safety and the health of safety of colleagues, patients and the general public.
  • Take responsibility for ensuring that legal obligations regarding information which is processed for both patients and staff is kept accurate, confidential, secure and in line with the Data Protection Act (1998) and Security and Confidentiality Policies.
  • Undertake, by agreement, such other responsibilities that the Trustees consider appropriate and reasonable.

Person Specification / Assessed by
Knowledge & Qualifications / Desirable / Essential
Qualification in relevant field including Nursing or Allied Health Care, Early Years, Social Work, Teaching, Training, Counselling, Mentoring, Supervision, etc.
Experience working with young people in a mental health setting. / X
X / All through application and interview
Membership of relevant professional body e.g. BACP, UKCP, BPS / X
Where relevant accredited by a professional body e.g. BACP, UKCP, BPS or HPC / X
Knowledge of the psychological and developmental impacts of maternal mental health issues (in particular postnatal depression) across the full range of ages and phases of the life cycle, especially babies and young people. / X
Knowledge of the long term impact of maternal mental health issues on both the infant-parent relationships and young parents. / X
Good knowledge of mental health legislations and the latest clinical guidance relating to maternal mental health e.g. NICE guidelines. / X
Good working knowledge & understanding of voluntary and statutory services available to young parents, especially in relation to mental health. / X
Understanding of clinical risk management and assessments. / X
Knowledge of good practice regarding child protection and safeguarding and relevant legislation relating to children, including the Children Act 1989 and the Protection of Children Act. / X
Skills & Experience
Experience of providing support to those who have experienced mental health issues. / x
Experience of working with and/ supporting young people / x
Experience of developing and delivering training resources to other professionals. / x
At least 2 years’ experience at project coordination / project management level in the voluntary or statutory sector. / x
Experience of recruiting and training volunteers / x
Experience of development work within a mental health or support service context / X
Experience of preparing and delivering training and workshops / X
Experience of being part of a team, implementing new projects and services / X
Ability to work in a fast moving, challenging and changing environment, with the ability to prioritise work and work to deadlines. / X
Caseload management, record keeping, report writing and file management. / X
Skills in self management, including time management. / X
Very high level of computer literacy skills (including Word, email, outlook, databases / powerpoint) and willing to be able to use these packages and others of a similar nature in every day work. / X
Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary system with colleagues from a range of clinical and other professional backgrounds. / X
Experience of organising your own workload, prioritising work and working to tight deadlines with minimal supervision. / X
Ability to employ a range of approaches including group and/or individual. / X
Ability to work in a culturally sensitive manner. / X
Good communication and listening skills together with a high standard of written communication. / X
Ability to provide high quality training to other clinicians. / X
Personal qualities
Creative thinker.
Strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities.
Excellent Inter-personal, IT and written communication skills.
Good networker and team player.
Enthusiastic and motivated.
Ability to work on own initiative, planning and prioritizing workload
Act with discretion and retain confidentiality.
Flexible, calm under pressure
Uphold the values of Acacia
Other factors:
  • A Commitment to Acacia’s aims and objectives including its Christian ethos and Articles of faith
  • Travel will be required regularly across Birmingham.
  • Strong commitment to Equal Opportunities and experience of implementing good practice in Equal Opportunities
  • Able to maintain a healthy life-work balance
  • Ability to work within a pressured environment with calmness, tolerance and empathy in a professional manner
/ X
X
x
x
X
X
X
X
X
X
x
x
x
x
x

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ACACIA recognises the great responsibility in working with children and vulnerable adults. To protect these people, and to protect you our employees, we will be required to obtain a disclosure check through the Criminal Records Bureau if you are offered an appointment. We will also offer you appropriate training as and when necessary.

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References:

Please give the names and addresses and telephone numbers of two people who know you well, who would be able to give you a reference and comment upon your suitability for the work you are applying for. One should ideally be a senior manager in your current or previous employment. If you would like an Acacia employee to act as a referee, they will only be able to provide you with a character reference. (Please note we will not contact references without your prior permission)

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