Community Vocational Support Worker

Job overview

A fantastic opportunity for a Vocational Support Worker to join our occupational therapy and vocational team within the North London Forensic Service (NLFS) providing medium and low secure in-patient and forensic outreach services for those suffering from mental illness and/or learning disabilities. The team provides comprehensive input across admission, rehabilitation, pre-discharge and outreach services.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be required to support individuals in accessing employment and educational opportunities, working closely with third sector organisations and multidisciplinary teams. You will work collaboratively with the employment, training and education team implementing and supporting vocational pathways between inpatient and community services, and support service users to access work placement schemes with aim of developing skills and confidence enabling community integration and rehabilitation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will be required to work autonomously at times with service users who may have diverse needs and presentations, often with psychotic symptoms, secondary diagnosis of personality disorder, and who can exhibit aggressive behaviour, poor insight and have offending histories. The role contributes to the wider multidisciplinary team and includes attending weekly meetings, face to face contact with service users, supporting individuals in travelling to courses/employment and developing links with external services. Verbal and written clear and adaptable communication, risk assessment skills and contribution to clinical discussion is a vital part of the job. The ETE programme uses a recovery-orientated approach to deliver personalised support tailored specifically to meet the needs and aspirations of each individual service user. Service aims are focused on co-production with an emphasis on encouraging social inclusion, improving self-esteem, confidence, self-belief and hope for the future, cultivating the discovery or re-discovery of a sense of personal identity; and developing meaningful structure promoting inclusion in their local communities.