Job Title: Healthy LifetsyleFacilitator
/ Team:Public HealthPost Number: / Division:
Grade: 5
/ Section/team:North Lincolnshire Healthy Lifestyle TeamOverall purpose of job:
To raise awareness of the benefits of good health and to give practical support to help people improve their knowledge, skills and confidence to be able to lead healthier lifestyles. This post will contribute to reducing health inequalities by principally focussing on addressing the needs of communities and groups that have a poorer health status than the rest of North Lincolnshire.
The postholder will contribute to improving health and wellbeing in North Lincolnshire and will contribute to achieving Public Health Outcomes Framework Targets.
Post holders will be expected to be flexible in undertaking the duties and responsibilities attached to their post and may be asked to perform other duties, which reasonably correspond to the general character of the post and are commensurate with its level of responsibility.
Main responsibilities:
- To engage with and identify health needs and concerns of members of the community, particularly those with which there is little current engagement or where there are health inequalities, in order to:
- Improve levels of healthy weight in adults and children
- Reduce physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour
- Reduce smoking prevalence
- Reduce the number adults who drink alcohol over the recommended limits
- Reduce health inequalities by reaching and improving outcomes for priority groups in areas where the needsare greatest and health is poorest
- Increase capacity in the community to look after and take control over their own health.
- Improve mental wellbeing
- To establish, receive and work with a case-load of clients requiring support and motivation to improve their health and wellbeing through one to one, small group and large group support.
- To develop with clients an individual health and action plan, support clients to achieve their goals over an agreed timescale, regularly review these action plans and revise as necessary to ensure that changes in behaviour are sustainable.
- To provide practical sessions where appropriate to support behaviour change, for example cook and eat sessions, supervised gym sessions.
- To have assigned responsibility for a specific locality or portfolio of workplaces and to develop a knowledge and understanding of the health and wellbeing issues affecting key groups within it and to proactively target efforts to improving health and wellbeing outcomes for those groups.
- To develop community capacity in respect of health and wellbeing by identifying potential health champions and supporting them to become active and effective health champions within their communities.
- To deliver training to professional and community groups in health and wellbeing topics
- Be creative and flexible in the support provided to clients ensuring that individual factors such as ethnicity, gender, age, personal circumstances, are taken into consideration and be respectful and non-judgemental of individual’s lifestyles and sensitive to the barriers associated with adopting a healthier lifestyle such as affordability and life circumstance.
- Organise and take part in events that raise awareness of health issues and provide opportunities to identify and engage with individuals requiring support.
- Take part in continuous professional development to keep up to date with local and national strategies and evidence to ensure that clients are provided with the most up to date evidence based practice.
- With the line manager, regularly review activity data in order to identify trends and develop strategies to meet the needs of the population.
- To support the delivery of community or workplace based wellbeing assessments and health checks.
- To maintain and update a client record system in accordance with relevant data protection and governance arrangements.
- Work with partner organisations and services to ensure appropriate signposting and referrals are carried out.
- Work in partnership with other health and social care organisations to develop and implement health improvement initiatives.
- Support and mentor volunteers and health champions from the community to enable them to contribute to the programme.
- Work within the policies and procedures of the Health and Wellbeing Service.
Knowledge, skills and experience:
- Recognised qualification(minimum NVQ level 3 or equivalent)in a subject appropriate to the Wellbeing office role or minimum 12 months relevant experience supporting people to make lifestyle changes to improve multiple aspects of their health and wellbeing.
- Each member of staff should hold three or more of the following qualifications and competencies, with an appropriate mix of different competencies at an organisational level:
- Royal Society of Public Health Level II award Understanding Health Improvement, or equivalent
- Royal Society of Public Health Level II award Understanding Behaviour Change, or equivalent
- Smoking Cessation Practitioner, as set out by the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT).
- City and Guilds Level III Health Trainer accreditation
- National Open College Network Health Trainers - Supporting the Health of the Community level 3
- Motivational interviewing
- Training on brief interventions for alcohol.
- Accredited training in providing physical activity group sessions.
- Other specialisms that draw psychological behavioural models and techniques such as self- efficacy, goal setting, relapse prevention, cognitive‐behavioural therapy, cognitive behavioural coaching and mindfulness based techniques
- Ability to demonstrate knowledge of local community issues within North Lincolnshire.
- Ability to use public health data to identify communities and groups that are at increased risk of developing preventable lifestyle related disease.
- Understanding of health inequalities and the impact of the wider determinants of health upon them.
- Experience of working with or being a member of community groups.
- Excellent verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
- Ability to work on own initiative, plan work and problem solve.
- Ability to work under pressure and to meet tight deadlines.
- Ability to work as a member of a team.
- Ability to handle sensitive & confidential Information and work to the strict code of confidentiality required for the post.
- Good time management & self-managementskills.
- Ability to prioritize and organise own workload.
- Confidence to work with people from different backgrounds.
- Able to use computer for data entry of client records.
Creativity and innovation:
The post holder is required to work creatively and innovatively with their clients to develop an individual health plan which involves setting small achievable goals for the individual to work towards taking into consideration their circumstances and needs.
Keep up to date with new evidence on behaviour change and health improvement and interpret how this can be applied at an individual level with clients.
Contacts and relationships:
- Service Manager - to provide feedback to the service manager in order to assist in service development and improvement on a daily basis if required and through monthly one to one meetings.
- Health Improvement Team – to collaborate on joint initiatives, promote improvements, and aid in the delivery of the team workplan.
- Relevant staff within other Council Directorates, e.g. leisure services, adult social care, children’s services, etc. - to collaborate on joint initiatives, offer advice, develop working relationships and promote improvements.
- General Public – to offer advice and support on a one to one or family basis, signpost to relevant services, take part in community wide health promotion events, consult with on service developments and improvements, work with to develop and deliver community based projects.
- Primary Health Care Teams, School nurses, health visitors, pharmacists, dentists, other healthcare professionals as appropriate – to provide advice, develop working relationships, collaborate and promote improvements.
- Secondary Care Trust staff including Mental Health Trust Staff - to provide advice, develop working relationships, collaborate and promote improvements.Voluntary and Community Organisations - to provide advice, develop working relationships, collaborate and promote improvements.
- Commercial Organisations - to provide advice, develop working relationships, collaborate and promote improvements.
Decision making:
The post holder will develop and decide on an individual action plan whilst working with each client to support them to change their behaviour and sustain those changes. There will be a need to identify resources available to achieve the outcomes within the action plan.
Identify risk issues that impact on the client’s health or social care needs.
Take appropriate action to the significance of the risk and consistent with protection procedures, applying child or adult protection procedures, following lone worker procedure
Once assessed as competent the postholder will be accountable for their own practice within their
sphere of responsibility identified and agreed with the Service Manager.
Responsibility for resources:
Sole responsibility for resources required to carry out the role when away from the office/base which will be roughly 80% of the time with the approximate value of £350. This will include a mobile telephone and laptop.
The post holder will also be responsible for the safe keeping of a smartcard to access care records for recording client information and keys and swipe cards to access office bases. The role would not require the keyholder to be called out in an emergency.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
Work demands
An individual must prioritise their own workload, which will fluctuate. Postholders will need to work flexibly to meet the needs of their clients.
Daily periods of concentration for 1-2 hours at a time to write up notes from client meetings, researching information in order to develop action plans and enter data on to the computer.
Daily periods of concentration and active listening when meeting with clients.
Regular travel across North Lincolnshire will be necessary and the post holder will require the ability to meet deadlines and be organised and ready for sessions when the client arrives at a venue convenient for them which could be in a variety of community settings across North Lincolnshire.
The hours of operation of the service will be from 8am to 8pm Mon to Fri, and 8am to noon on Saturday. Postholders can expect to be rostered to work between during these times.
Physical demands
Postholders must be role models for encouraging people to live active and healthy lives. Some lifting of resources will be necessary, which will include leaflets, banner boards and display materials when taking part in health promotion and community events as and when arise.
Working conditions:
The job is part office based, for administrative purposes and requires the post holder to use VDU equipment on most days but also requires mobile working to visit clients in community settings, accompany clients at healthcare appointments or to leisure centres, for example.
There will be some outdoor working involved to deliver physical activity sessions or at community events to promote good health.
Time spent in the office is dependent on client caseload but would be approximately20% office based. The remainder of the time is spent out of the office.
Work context
The job involves lone and out of hours working. Contact will be made with a range of clients on a face to face basis, who are often sensitive, emotional, aggressive or abusive. Clients may be elderly, infirm, under the influence of drugs or other substances, have mental health problems, or exhibit challenging behaviour.
The post holder will be required to challenge client’s behaviour, which may be challenging and frustrating and the individual may be faced with distressing circumstances and emotionally demanding situations which will come about occasionally when dealing with clients and their families.
Position in organisation:
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Is the supervision/management shared with another post in the structure? Yes No
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