Senior Social Worker, Specialist Palliative Care (Fixed Term)

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Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Specialist Palliative Care Service Family Support Team as a Band 6 Experienced Social Worker for a 2-year fixed term contract.

The Family Support Team is a small team of social workers who support adults who are under the care of the Salisbury Specialist Palliative Care Service and their families. The Team also provides bereavement support and is responsible for supervision of a team of experienced bereavement support volunteers. The social workers work with children both within family support and bereavement support.

The Team works closely with the multi professional colleagues within the Specialist Palliative Care Service. The Service consists of the Hospice Inpatient Unit, Community Palliative Care Team, Hospital Palliative Care Team, Hospice@Home, Therapies, Complementary Therapies and Peter Gillam Support Centre.

The catchment area of the Service is a geography covering South Wiltshire, along with parts of Hampshire and Dorset. Most of the Family Support Team's work is carried out in the community but the office base is in the Salisbury Hospice building, which is on the site of Salisbury District Hospital.

This post will suit someone who enjoys working as part of a multi professional team but who is confident managing the priorities within their own workload and who has effective interpersonal communication skills and the flexibility to adapt to different presenting situations and needs.

Main duties of the job

As a Senior Social Worker, you will provide psychosocial palliative care for our patients and their families/carers. You will contribute to the holistic assessment of our patients by working collaboratively with the multi professional colleagues within the Service. You will support individuals living with terminal illness and those dealing with impending death, loss and grief. Some of this work involves supporting groups. The work will take place in a variety of settings, whether in people's own homes, schools or the Hospice building. You will also be involved in the supervision and support of volunteers, as well as delivering training in education programmes.

Attached you will find the person specification document which provides more detail about the essential and desirable skills and experience needed for this role. We highly recommend you review this document and use it when completing your application as these criteria are used by hiring managers as guidance during shortlisting.

To understand the day-to-day responsibilities in more detail please read the full job description document attached.

We welcome informal contact if you wish to find out more about the role, including discussing any potential flexible working arrangements.

Working for our organisation

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust (SFT) is an innovative hospital with a proud heritage and over 250 years of experience behind us. Here we're driven to deliver an outstanding experience for everyone and have been well regarded for the quality of care and treatment we continue to provide for our patients and also our staff.

We are an acute Trust, rated "Good" by the CQC, with a track record of high performance providing regional and super regional specialist services such as: Burns, Plastics & Reconstructive Surgery, Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratory, Wessex Rehabilitation, Spires Cleft Centre and the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre. We have about 470 beds and employ over 4000 staff.

We support flexible working and will consider requests taking into account the needs of the service. We think working here is pretty rewarding. You can access a range of NHS discounts, receive a minimum of 35 days paid holiday (pro rata), and we offer a generous pension scheme. On-site benefits include car parking (fee applies), leisure centre, day nursery and holiday play scheme.

Salisbury is an attractive place to live and work and really gives you the best of everything. With easy access to London and local airports, the city of Southampton is only a short train or car journey away or if you prefer the sea, Bournemouth is also accessible. Don't just take our word for it, why not explore what Salisbury has to offer by visiting www.experiencesalisbury.co.uk

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached Job description and person specification for full details of roles and responsibilities.

Person specification

Application form and interview

Essential criteria

• Registered Social Worker with Social Work England
• Experience of direct work with adults or children with Life Limiting illness or bereavement
• Demonstrable experience of working effectively within multi professional teams
• Demonstrable experience of working in practice in direct work with children or adults
• Has a driving licence and independent transport for community work
• Ability to manage caseload and competing demands
• Experience of computer based recording and filing and GDPR
• Experience of developing training resources and delivering training
• Has supervised professional colleagues or volunteers
• Knowledge and application of relevant legislation
• Ability to describe and apply psychosocial theories relating to human lifespan and bereavement
• Demonstrable communication and negotiation skills

Desirable criteria

• Advanced Communication Skills or Counselling certificate
• PEPS or experience as a supervisor
• Experience of group work facilitation
• Experience of working with additional communication or cognitive support needs
• Knowledge of local NHS and local authority community care provision
• Knowledge of welfare benefits

We offer excellent benefits that help make SDH a great place to work. These include but aren't limited to:-

• Holiday starting at 27 days plus Bank Holidays rising to 29 days after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years for Agenda for Change staff
• Holiday entitlement for Medical and Dental staff starts at 27 days for Junior/Senior Clinical Fellows, Specialty Doctors and rises to 32 days after 5 years. Consultant entitlement starts at 32 days and rises to 34 days after 7 years
• An additional day's leave to celebrate your birthday (after 12 months)
• Access to a career average revalued earnings pension scheme
• Life assurance if a member of the pension scheme
• An extensive Health and Wellbeing offer to help you deal with life's challenges
• Exclusive deals and discounts websites saving you money on everyday purchases, treats for the family, eating out and utility bills for home
• Cycle to work scheme
• Uniform provided (where required)
• On site Day Nursery and Holiday Play scheme
• On site health and fitness club
• On site car parking
• Opportunities to get on - take advantage of our ongoing learning opportunities and training, to help you achieve the job and career you want.

Please be advised that this vacancy may close earlier than stated if we receive a large number of applications. We will not accept any applications or queries via agencies, under any circumstances.

SEASONAL RESPIRATORY VACCINATIONS

We continue to encourage and support our staff to participate in the seasonal respiratory vaccination programme in order to protect themselves, colleagues and their patients.

GETTING TO WORK

We offer parking on site at Salisbury District Hospital, a daily charge applies. We encourage our staff to utilise other green methods of getting to work such as cycling or walking where possible, and our Trust is well connected through the bus services to the city centre and other areas.

OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUALITY

We are committed to making Salisbury an inclusive and welcoming place for every single staff member, regardless of who they are and where they come from. Equality sits at the heart of everything we do, and we ensure that all employees have equal opportunity to develop, to apply for promotions and to work flexibly.

The Trust actively promotes a work environment free from harassment and discrimination and provides training for staff to ensure this happens. We also closely monitor recruitment activity, training, development and employment practices to ensure equality of practice with regard to race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, martial status and age.

OTHER INFORMATION

If this job requires you to have DBS check to enable you to properly fulfil the requirements of the job, on appointment, you will be required to replay the cost of obtaining a DBS check and this amount will be reclaimed in instalments from your salary. Many staff use the DBS update service at a cost of £13 per annum but you need to sign up for this via their website.

Please read the job description and person specification carefully and ensure that your application reflects the knowledge, skills and experience required.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

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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

• Senior Social Worker Job Description (PDF, 229.0KB)
• Facts about Salisbury (PDF, 214.5KB)