ROWAN ALBA LIMITED JOB DESCRIPTION

POSITION:COMMUNITY ALCOHOL RELATED DAMAGE PEER SUPPORT WORKER

RESPONSIBLE TO:SERVICE MANAGER

PLACE OF WORK:The service isbased at Rowan Alba Head Office at Fountainbridge and at Milestone House ARBD Unit Oxgangs.

OVERALL AIM OF SERVICE

The Community Alcohol Related Damage Service ( CARDS ) provides a support service to individualswho have, or are at risk of developing Alcohol Related Brain Damage. These individuals areliving in the community or moving on from the NHS Lothian / Penumbra ARBD re-enablement unit.

JOB PURPOSE

The PEER support worker will use their own lived experience of recovery from problematic alcohol use to support our peer volunteers and our service users.

This role is expected to change and as the service organically changes and develops. To ensure we find the right candidate for this exciting step in to peer support we have listed the information below as a guide to what we expect the peer support role to involve at this stage.

KEY ACTIVITIES OF A PEER SUPPORT WORKER

  • Advocacy
  • Connecting to resources
  • Experiential sharing
  • Building community
  • Relationship building
  • Socialising & self-esteem building
  • Administration
  • Team communication
  • Receiving support

THE POSITIVE IMPACT OF PEER SUPPORT

Experience

Peers draw upon life experiences, especially difficult and challenging experiences as well as experiences of recovery and resilience. These experiences are extremely useful to service users. This enables the peer to understand service users in a way that is real and empathetic and allows them to make meaningful connections.

Approach

Peers engage with service users in a way that is respectful, calm encouraging and accepting of the nature and extent of engagement that clients wish to have. This approach communicates to the individual that it is about them and not the peer or the organization.

Presence

Peers engage with service users by actively listening and being curious and attentive to the individual. This validates the service user and allows them greater freedom and more access to valued resources than they would normally enjoy.

Role Modeling

Peers act as examples to both clients, staff and volunteers. This is valuable representation to all those looking to find new paths in achieving their goals, or supporting others to do the same.

Collaboration

The main activity of Peers involves working with people, either service users, volunteers or staff. Their role is very much defined by their connectedness and their ability to form relationships.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • To establish a supportive and respectful relationship with service users and volunteer peer supporters
  • Help service users to identify their own achievable and meaningful recovery goals and set recovery objectives, drawing on your mutual resources as peers and utilising a range of recovery tools, techniques and experience.
  • Model personal responsibility, self awareness, self-belief, self advocacy and hopefulness via the telling of own recovery story to inspire and instil confidence in both volunteer peer supporters and service users.
  • Assist service users and volunteer peer supporters to use the STAR outcomes monitoring tool.
  • Share / teach coping, self-help and self-management techniques within the peer relationship.
  • Support service users to identify and overcome fears and within a relationship of empathy, trust and honesty, challenge negative self-talk.
  • Support volunteers to develop healthy relationships with their service users
  • To link with CARDS staff and support in the recruitment and training of volunteer peer supporters.
  • To facilitate the engagement between volunteer peer supporters and CARD service users.
  • To be partly responsible alongside the CARDS team in contributing to new and creative ways of recruiting volunteers.

TRAINING & SUPPORT

  • Induction and regular support by means of support and supervision.
  • In house training will be provided and focused around the key areas of the CARDS service.
  • You can expect to receive a clear outline of what this role involves and the tasks that you will be expected to undertake, including all volunteer training so that you understand their role and can provide support appropriately.

Criminal Convictions Checks:

All staff and volunteers working with service users are subject to a criminal conviction check, carried out by Rowan Alba Ltd, through Disclosure Scotland.

A professional register check may also be undertaken where appropriate

This job description outlines the general ways in which it is expected you will meet the overall requirements of this post.

The list of tasks is not exhaustive and you may be required to carry out other duties to fulfill the role effectively. This job description is subject to regular review.

JDAACARDS

Date: July 2016