Ashford Place Project Worker
Ashford Place Project Worker
Accountable to:Ashford Place Chief Executive
Hours of work:
Key relationships:Brent Mental Health User Group (BUG) staff
including Director and User Involvement and
Training Worker; Hestia Project Manager and
administrator; Brent Advice Matters
volunteer; staff in primary and secondary statutory and voluntary sector organisations in Brent; individual members of the community visiting the Ashford Place Community Cafe; befrienders and mentors
Aims and ethos of the project
This project is a partnership between Brent Mental Health User Group (BUG), Ashford Place and Hestia. The aim of the peer support project is to facilitate and enable any individuals from different communities in Brent to improve different aspects of their wellbeing, based on their aspirations and goals, and get actively involved in designing and improving services as well as running activities themselves.
The ethos of the project is to work based on a personalisation approach, normalising experience of mental health issues and enabling individuals to address what is contributing to mental health issues, ensuring social inclusion and enabling individuals to feel empowered to take action themselves to both reduce reliance on services as well as prevent crises and use of services.
Roles of partner organisations
BUG is responsible for all engagement activities, including leading on development and ongoing evaluation of the project and provision of peer support, Ashford Place is responsible for the mentoring and befriending aspects while Hestia provides oversight and creation and submission of monitoring information to funders. The project is jointly funded by Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Brent council. Staff in all partner organisations will need to work closely together.
Accessing the project
Any individuals from different communities in Brent who want to improve any aspects of their wellbeing, including to deal with anything that is contributing to mental health issues can access different parts of the project provided by Ashford Place and BUG.
People may access the project via BUG, any community organisations, primary and secondary statutory services, including via organisations’ websites. This includes both GPs and Brent’s Talking Therapies Service. Individuals may access any aspect of the project via Ashford Place Community Cafe, including via accessing information available from Brent Advice Matters (BAM) with support from this volunteer and/or BUG’s Information Resource. Access to the project is open so individuals do not need to meet any access criteria but simply feel they will benefit.
This postholder will be the first point of contact for any enquiries about the mentoring and befriending aspects of the project.
Publicising the project and linking with other community resources
BUG and Ashford Place will be responsible for broadly publicising the project across the borough. The aim is to enable individuals to link in with existing resources as opposed to creating new activities which duplicate existing provision, for example, though individuals will also be able to develop and run activities.
This postholder will need to work closely with BUG staff to publicise all aspects of the project on an ongoing basis.
Development of service incorporating user involvement
This postholder will be responsible for developing the operational policy of the aspects of the project for which Ashford Place is responsible.
The aim is that local communities – including individuals using primary, secondary statutory and community services to deal with mental health issues and those involved in their support networks – will be involved in developing the service based on its aims and objectives as well as evaluating it on an ongoing basis.
This postholder will be responsible for ensuring this is the case, including by working closely with BUG staff – particularly BUG’s User Involvement and Training Worker – who will be responsible for carrying out this involvement alongside BUG’s Director. Examples of involvement are:
- Developing operational policy
- Developing good practice guidelines for mentors and befrienders
- Developing good practice contract for use with these volunteers and individuals with whom they are working
- Developing outcome measure which can be utilised with individuals
- Developing short satisfaction survey to be completed on an ongoing basis by individuals to highlight benefits and achievement of eg key performance indicators
- Evaluation on a six-monthly basis, including evaluating tools developed and used (see above)
Working with mentors and befrienders – and individuals using the service
This postholder will be responsible for recruiting mentors and befrienders from local communities, including those with lived experience of mental health issues, based on clear role descriptions and person specifications.
The postholder will be responsible for creating clear role descriptions and person specifications against which individuals recruited will be assessed during training provided by BUG staff. The postholder will also be responsible for ensuring all necessary checks such as DBS checks are carried out as well as good practice in relation to volunteering.
The postholder will be responsible for ensuring that the goals and aspirations of both individuals using the mentoring and befriending service and those volunteering in these roles are met as far as is practicable. This will include both enabling those acting as mentors and befrienders to identify what they want to achieve, including skills they want to develop and provision of references, for example.
The postholder will be responsible for enabling individuals using the service to identify action they want to take to improve different aspects of their wellbeing, including by utilising tools such as the London Health Programmes/BUG Wellbeing Toolkit. They will also be responsible for ensuring negotiation of the contract between mentors/befrienders and individuals using these services as well as overseeing that individuals are benefiting and achieving their identified outcomes.
They will be responsible for appropriately matching mentors and befrienders with individuals based on their interests, any cultural needs and availability. Mentors and befrienders will work with individuals for specific lengths of time – generally for no longer than about 3-4 months – ensuring that individuals are facilitated to develop their lives and resilience, avoiding dependence. Similarly, mentors and befrienders will be expected to commit themselves for around the same length of time as opposed to longer term.
Support and supervision of mentors and befrienders
The postholder will be responsible for providing support and supervision to mentors and befrienders, including dealing with any difficulties in their relationships with individuals with whom they are working. They will also be responsible for ensuring that mentors and befrienders take part in regular reflective practice groups run by BUG staff in order to maintain good practice and fidelity to the project’s model.
The postholder will be responsible for ensuring safe and effective practice including via providing support and supervision to mentors and befrienders and ensuring all those involved utilise appropriate approaches such as Safeguarding Adults and working within the agreed operational policy.
Development of activities
As individuals work with mentors and befrienders, it is anticipated that they will identify both ways they want to spend their time as well as barriers to doing so. Where there is significant interest, taster sessions may be organised at Ashford Place. This postholder will be responsible for compiling this information, feeding it back to BUG and working with BUG’s User Involvement and Training Worker to organise sessions.
Where individuals have identified barriers and training needs e.g. in dealing with difficult feelings, communication skills, developing relationships... the postholder needs to work with BUG’s User Involvement and Training Worker to organise workshops and publicise them to individuals using the service. Individuals will also be able to take part in training provided by BUG to enable them to set up and run activities based on their interests and aspirations.
Evaluating the project and individuals’ measuring progress
The postholder will be responsible for ensuring that individuals measure progress and how they are benefiting from use of the project, utilising both the tool to be developed as well as the Recovery Star based on their preferences.
An additional tool will be developed to enable the project to measure how individuals are benefiting from their involvement as well as how mentors and befrienders are benefiting. This postholder will be responsible for ensuring this happens.
Data collection
The postholder will be responsible for collection of relevant data for contracting purpose, compiling data and passing on information when required to the Hestia administrator.
Status of contract
As this is a new project, it is anticipated that this job description will be regularly reviewed and amended as necessary.
Person specification for Ashford Place Project Worker
Experience
Experience of working in a health and/or social care setting and/or in a community project
Experience of using mental health services
Experience of setting up, developing and evaluating a project
Experience of providing support and supervision to staff and/or volunteers
Knowledge
Knowledge of different models of mentoring and befriending
Knowledge of different models of user involvement
Skills and abilities
Proven ability to build and maintain good working relationships with a range of stakeholders
Proven ability to work with different communities, incorporating their different needs and experiences
Proven ability to support and supervise staff and/or volunteers, including dealing with any difficulties
Proven, developed listening and communication skills
Proven ability to work cooperatively with others as part of a team
Proven skills in developing and implementing policy
July 2016
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