Senior Social Worker

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About Us

EPUT provides community health, mental health and learning disability services to support more than 3.2 million people living across Bedfordshire, Essex and Suffolk. Also:

• We are among the largest employers in the in the East of England region, with more than 10,000 staff working across more than 200 sites.
• We run the COVID-19 vaccination programme across mid and south Essex and Suffolk and north east Essex.

EPUT was formed on 1 April 2017 following the merger of North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (NEP) and South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT). A new leadership team was established at the Trust in 2020.
Our vision and values

Our Vision

"To be the leading health and wellbeing service in the provision of mental health and community care".

Our Purpose

"We care for people every day. What we do together, matters".

Our Values

• We Care
• We Learn
• We Empower

Our strategic objectives

• We will deliver safe, high quality integrated care services.
• We will enable each other to be the best that we can.
• We will work together with our partners to make our services better.
• We will help our communities to thrive.

Our services

• Mental Health Services
• Community Health Services
• Learning Disabilities Services
• Social Care

Find out more about the services we offer in our service directory.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for highly motivated senior social worker to join Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) as locally we invest in the development of social workers and as we play a lead role in the 'Think Ahead' initiative. EPUT is a highly successful and ambitious organisation dedicated to providing mental health services, substance misuse services and other specialist award winning services to a population of approximately 2.5million throughout Essex, Bedfordshire and Suffolk.

We are seeking an enthusiastic and resourceful senior social worker who will have the ability to respond positively and creatively to the needs of our service users.

If you would like more information please contact recruitment.adverts@nhs.net

Main duties of the job

You will work as part of the Uttlesford Community Mental Health team in West Essex. Our post requires a peripatetic practitioner with a high degree of flexibility and creativity and a positive, forward-thinking attitude.

You must be an excellent communicator, dynamic and well versed and assertive in multi-disciplinary working and developing and maintaining relationships with key partners.

In return we offer you support from our established Social Care Leadership Team, supervision, training and development opportunities.

Working for our organisation

EPUT are looking for motivated staff who shares our Trust values of Open, Compassionate and Empowering. In return, EPUT can offer you a range of benefits and development including;

• Season Ticket Loans
• NHS discounts for staff
• Excellent Training facilities and opportunities
• Buying and Selling annual leave scheme
• The opportunity to work bank shifts and expand knowledge and experience in other areas
• Salary Sacrifice schemes including lease cars and Cycle to Work
• Day One Flexible Employer, the Trust supports and actively encourages flexible working for all employees. We offer many options and you are encouraged to ask the recruiting manager what is possible for this role. If appointed, you will have the opportunity for a flexible working request from the first day of your employment.

Join our Staff bank

What is Staff Bank?

Our EPUT NHS staff bank is an entity managed by the trust that hires clinical and non-clinical healthcare professionals to take on shifts at our trust hospitals and community settings. Here at EPUT we maintain our own bank of specialist staff to ensure that we are able offer safe and effective care at all times.

All our permanent staff are automatically enrolled onto the staff bank however this does not mean you have to work any additional shifts, but the option is there for you if you wish.

If you are joining our Trust in a fixed term role, please indicate on your New Starter Paperwork that you wish to join our staff bank.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Responsibilities

The successful candidate will work as a Senior Social Worker across the community mental health teams providing high quality assessment and intervention to service users experiencing a wide range of mental health problems, promoting recovery and independence, using Mental Health Care clusters to identify appropriate pathways and treatment plans with service users.

You will support the delivery of strength and asset based approaches promoting recovery and social inclusion with individuals and families. This post will involve implementing the personalisation agenda through strengths based assessments and you'll be vital to delivering the statutory social care duties and responsibilities within the Care Act (2014). You will be adept at delivering personalised reviews ensuring that s117 needs are transparent within care planning and duly reviewed.

Following appointment, the postholder is required to actively practise as an AMHP (subject to AMHP qualification) - if not currently an AMHP they will be required to undertake AMHP training at the earliest opportunity) on the Area AMHP rota, undertaking MHA assessments and other allocated work in relation to service users with a range of mental health problems and engaging with their carers so that, within the legislations, appropriate action is taken.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Social Worker qualification

AMHP

Essential criteria

• AMHP qualification

experience

Essential criteria

• Community MH experience

!Important Professional References

Make sure that as a part of your application you have professional references with business contract information covering your last three year employment history. We are unable to accept personal or character references.

As a newly appointed employee you are responsible for incurring the cost of your initial DBS check relevant to your post, the amount will be deducted from your first salary with the Trust.

Applications for Job Share are positively welcomed.

Equal Opportunities Employer

Our Trust is an Equal Opportunities Employer. We particularly welcome applications from people with experience of using mental health services. We also hold the Disability two tick symbol and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with learning disabilities, we encourage people with a disability to apply. If you require this application form in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape etc, please contact the Recruitment Department on 01375 364513 or email epunft.recruitment.adverts@nhs.net and we can arrange for this to be dispatched to you.

The Trust has the right to expire vacancies prior to the closing date if they so wish. The Trust makes every attempt to contact all applicants and we strongly advise that you check the email account which is registered with NHS Jobs regularly, we would advise however due to the high number of applications we receive that if you have not heard from us within three weeks of the closing date your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expect all staff to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to robust safer recruitment processes.

Covid Vaccination

Although Covid vaccinations are no longer a mandatory requirement within the NHS we continue to encourage and support the vaccination uptake as this remains the best line of defence against Covid19. The safety of our staff and patients is a top priority for us at EPUT.

If you would like to book a Covid vaccination or would like more information please contact us by emailing epunft.cv19hr@nhs.net.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• Job description (PDF, 728.5KB)
• Person specification (PDF, 520.3KB)
• Why Join The NHS Pension Scheme (PDF, 91.3KB)
• EPUT Pledge - Step into Health (PDF, 211.0KB)
• Candidate Privacy Policy (PDF, 336.6KB)
• Right to Work Information (PDF, 293.6KB)
• Employer Recognition Scheme - Gold Award (PDF, 27.7KB)
• Trust Vision and Values (PDF, 168.9KB)
• Values of the NHS Pension (PDF, 151.3KB)