Inner South Community Health Service

Position Description

POSITION DESCRIPTION

1.POSITION SUMMARY

Position Name & No: / Supporting Connections Worker – SRS/SAVVI
Job Ref No: VAC0171
Date Updated: / October 2015
Employment Status:
Classification/Award: / Permanent fulltime
SACS Social Worker Class 2 or CD Worker 2A
Community Health Centre (Stand Alone Services) Social and Community Service Employees Multi Enterprise Agreement 2013-15
Position Reports To: / Coordinator OPHRSP &SRS/SAVVI
Closing Date:
Location: / Sunday 1stNovember, 2015
Prahran site .The incumbent may need to work at other sites when required

2.OUR ORGANISATION

The Inner South Community Health Service Ltd. (ISCH) is a multi-sited community health agency providing a comprehensive range of health and support services to the municipalities of Port Phillip, Stonnington, Glen Eira, Kingston and Bayside. Approximately 290 staff work in multi-disciplinary teams to deliver programs and services across five key service locations: SouthPort (in Coventry Street, South Melbourne); Inkerman Street, St Kilda; Mitford Street, St Kilda, Malvern Road, Prahran and Chesterville Rd, Cheltenham. In addition other staff are located in and provide services in public housing high-rise estates. The Inner South Community Health Service Ltd. is a registered company managed by a Board of Directors. The company is registered under the Corporations Act 2001.

Our programs include:

Community & Clinical Care
Primary & Mental Health
Organisational Support & Development

2.1Mission

ISCH works in partnership with people and communities to promote and improve equity, health and wellbeing, by:

Delivering innovative, client-directed services that take into account the context of the individual and the community; and
Championing prevention and change to address the structural reasons for health inequity.

To develop and deliver quality health services that respond to the needs of our communities, with a particular focus on engaging those who may not readily access mainstream services and to advocate for a social model of health and address the structural reasons for health inequity.

2.2Values

These values underpin all our interactions with staff, clients and our communities:

Inclusiveness

Valuing everyone’s uniqueness and facilitating their inclusion and participation.

Empowerment

Working with individuals and communities to build their attributes, capabilities and capacity to manage their lives.

Equity

Ensuring all achieve equitable health and well-being outcomes, regardless of life circumstance and economic status.

Social Justice and Human Rights

Respecting and promoting the dignity of all individuals and advocating to ensure equality of opportunity to a just and fair life.

Accountability

Making our ways of working open, honest and transparent and taking responsibility for our actions.

Learning and Evolving

Consciously learning from and improving our work to achieve our vision.

For more information on our organisation please visit our website

3.POSITION DETAILS

3.1 Position Context

The services and programs of ISCH are currently grouped by target group or work area. The Community Care Program consists of staff from various disciplines, located across four centres. The target groups are primarily the frail aged, people with disabilities and their carers, and include people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Services provided include Community Nursing, Indigenous Access, Social Work, Physiotherapy, Podiatry, Dietetics, Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapy, with a range of special projects and group activities. The SRS /SAVVI team is located within the Community Care Program. Supporting Accommodation for Vulnerable Victorians Initiative (SAVVI) was introduced in 2006 to improve the viability of pension-level SRS’s and to assist with maintaining a level of access to pension-level SRS beds. The second aim of SAVVI is to support improvements to the wellbeing of residents of these SRS.

The SRS/SAVVI team provide outreach services to residents of pension-level SRS’s as well as individual and systemic advocacy to improve residents’ access to services generally.

3.2 Position Objective

The objective of the Community Connections Worker position is to improve the sustainability and functioning of pension-level SRS’s by:

Identifying unmet residents health and social needs and assisting them to access appropriate services

Building skills/capacity of proprietors and staff to identify resident’s needs, improve care planning to meet those needs, and to better manage challenging behaviours

Building skills/confidence of residents to access services and participate in activities as independently as possible

Strengthening and maintaining links between pension-level SRS and local services,

including developing new service approaches where appropriate

3.3 Key Responsibilities

Implement strategies to build capacity of proprietors and their staff, residents, and local service providers.Capacity building strategies include mentoring and information sharing to build the proprietors skills, residents confidence and strengthen relationships between the SRS and local services.

Work with residents, proprietors and SRS staff to identify unmet health and social needs and unmanaged behaviours.

Assist residents to access services to meet identified health and social needs.

Actively seek to engage residents in a range of social and lifestyle activities of their choice.

Manage available Flexible Care Funds to assist residents access services and activities

Undertake service mapping and SAVVI projects as required

CONTRIBUTING TO STRATEGIC ORGANISATIONAL INITIATIVES

1)Continuous Quality Improvement

Identify continuous quality improvement opportunities and act upon when/where relevant

2)Community Participation

To undertake active and meaningful community participation and engagement

3)Model of Care

Understanding of the ISCHS Model of Care and an ability to integrate the principles and tools into practice, including implementing specific elements of the Model as directed.

4) Health Promotion

Contribute to the development, implementation and evaluation of organisational Health Promotion strategies.

Professional Development

To attend and contribute to staff development and supervision programs, and to attend relevant courses and mandatory in-house training and participate in peer review/practice.

Occupational Health & Safety

Ensure that work and services are provided in a safe manner at all times by regularly reviewing practices and environment and abiding by our Smoking Free Workplace Policy

Performance Management Framework

Actively participate in an annual individual performance plan, which determines key responsibilities, strategies and performance indicators.

Intellectual Property Policy

ISCHS has an Intellectual Property Policy with which staff are required to understand and comply

4.KEY SELECTION CRITERIA (Must be submitted with your Application)

Mandatory

A tertiary qualification in Social Work (eligibility for registration with AASW) and/or equivalent qualification, with demonstrated experience in health or community settings.
Extensive experience in working with adults with Psychiatric Disability, Intellectual Disability, Alcohol and Drugs and Acquired Brain Injury, who are homeless and/or financially disadvantaged.
Demonstrated knowledge of the full range of issues experienced by the client group, including behavioural issues, together with a high level of Case Management practice skill.
Communication skills both written and verbal. The ability to prepare clear, written reports, maintain files, manage flexible care funds and data requirements and the capacity to represent the program at both an agency and community level.
A commitment to offering responsive support to clients, to be respectful and empathetic as well as being able to set clear approaches and limits.
Demonstrated capacity to engage clients and relevant stakeholders in the development and implementation of individualised goal/support plans.
An understanding of the pension-level SRS industry, and the issues faced by proprietors, including business and residential care issues.
The ability to work positively and collaboratively with SRS proprietors and staff in the management of resident care.
The ability to work as a team member and also a sole outreach worker.
Good communication skills, both written and verbal, including data collection and storage, computer literacy, report writing, and the capacity to represent the program at both an agency and community level.
Possession of a full current Victorian Driver’s Licence is essential.
Successful applicants will be required to undergo a police check.

Desirable

Experience in working directly with pension-level SRS residents

Proficiency in a community language

5.CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

Award:

/ Community Health Centre (Stand Alone Services) Social and Community Service Employees Multi Enterprise Agreement 2013-15

Salary Level:

/ Social Worker – Class 2, level dependent upon experience or Community Development Worker Class 2Alevel dependent upon experience

Hours Per Week:

/ 38 hours or 40 hours a week with provision to accrue an ADO

Duration:

/ Permanent

Probationary Period:

/ In accordance with our usual practice, there will be a probationary period of three months, during which time a review process will be undertaken. At the expiration of the probationary period, employment may be confirmed as an ongoing employee, employment may be terminated or the probationary period may be extended up to a maximum of 6 months with further review. During the probationary period either party can terminate for any reason.

Location:

/ 240 Malvern Road, Prahran
From time to time the incumbent may be requested to work from or be based at other ISCH centres.

Salary Packaging Information:

Salary packaging is a legitimate method of restructuring existing salary into a combination of salary and expense payment benefits in order to provide a higher net remuneration for the employee.
This offer applies while Inner South Community Health Service continues to be granted "public benevolent institution" status and enjoys exemption from the provisions of the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT). Should our status change salary packaging will no longer be available.
We offer 3 types of Salary Packaging:-
Standard tax free salary packaging amount $15,900 [per annum
Meal Entertainment Expenses $12,000 per annum
Entertainment Facility Leasing Expenses - no threshold per annum

(*subject to budget legislation passing the Senate this may reduce to $5,000 per annum)

It is not compulsory for employees to take up the offer to ‘package’ their salary; however the benefits from packaging are considerable. There is a small cost to the employee.
Salary packaging is not available for casual or for locum employees who are on a contract less than 3 months in duration.

6.APPLICATION PROCESS

Please apply directly via our website quoting Job Reference No: VAC0171.

Further enquires related to this position can be directed to:
Contact Name / Email / Telephone
Meredith Wurm / / 03 95251300

Additional Notes to Applicants

A satisfactory police check will be required of the successful applicant. Staff working with children may be required to undertake a Working with Children Check.
Pre-Existing Injury

Prior to any person being appointed to this position it will be required that they disclose full details of any pre-existing injuries or disease that might be affected by employment in this position.

W:\Human Resources, Quality and Admin\Recruitment\PDs\New PDs for New Structure 2014\Community & Clinical Care\Community Care\2015\SW SRS SAVVI PD VAC0171 CD-1-11-2015.docx

Internal / Confidential

Review Date: 27.4.15 Reviewed by: Meredith Wurm