Employer: Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Lancs & South Cumbria
Town: Preston
Salary: Volunteer expenses will be reimbursed
Closing: 26/01/2025 23:59
Interview date: 03/02/2025
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is situated on the west coast of Lancashire, with services covering the local authority areas of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre. The Trust is part of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS) supporting a population of around 1.6 million people.
We have three main hospitals providing acute services to around 330,000 local residents. The organisation also provides specialist tertiary care for cardiac and haematology services, delivers community health services to over 445,000 residents including those in North Lancashire and hosts the National Artificial Eye Service across England. Plus, we provide urgent and emergency care services to an estimated 18 million people who visit the seaside resort each year. We employ over 7000 people from 68 different countries.
We welcome and encourage applications from anyone with protected characteristics, as well as supporting reservists and Veterans who are looking for a rewarding and challenging career within the NHS.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals encourages flexible working in all our roles to support staff in maintaining a healthy home-life balance. Working patterns such as part-time working, self-rostering, compressed hours, annualised hours, term time, reverse term time, and flexitime working can be explored.
Job Overview
Do you have experience of birth trauma or perinatal loss? Do you have empathy and passion to support women experiencing trauma after birth or perinatal loss? Women and their families affected by trauma after loss often express that it helps to talk to someone who has been through a similar experience.
The role of the specially trained Peer Support Volunteer offers one-to-one contact with a woman providing the opportunity to speak to someone who has been through a similar experience, offering flexible person-centred support, and providing a listening and empathetic ear. They will offer safe, effective, and appropriate support to the woman using their experiential skills and knowledge.
Flexible locations: Preston, Chorley, Leyland, Ormskirk, Skelmersdale, Blackpool, Morecambe, Lancaster, Barrow In Furness, Blackburn, Burnley.
Main Duties of the Job
Peer Support Volunteers may be required:
* To talk to women over the telephone, online or in person.
* To listen and show empathy.
* To meet women in appropriate settings and support them to access relevant activities either in a home setting or the community.
Working for Our Organisation
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust has been selected by NHS England and NHS Improvement to mobilise the new Maternal Mental Health service (MMHS) delivering across the four trusts (East Lancashire, Lancashire, Morecambe Bay and Blackpool) of Lancashire and South Cumbria. The model proposed consists of Psychological Therapists and Clinical Psychologists working alongside MMHS midwives and Peer Support Volunteers in a community setting meeting the ambitions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) previously referred to as ‘Maternity Outreach Services’.
This much-needed service will support women who have PTSD following perinatal loss (including early miscarriage, recurrent miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, termination of pregnancy for any reason, parent-infant separation at birth due to safeguarding concerns).
Detailed Job Description and Main Responsibilities
* To work as part of a team of volunteers.
* To talk to women over the telephone or online.
* To listen and show empathy towards peers.
* To meet women in appropriate settings and support them to access relevant activities either in a home setting or the community.
* To provide encouragement and support in a sensitive and non-judgemental manner, with people from a variety of backgrounds.
* To liaise with Peer Support Coordinators to ‘debrief’ after each encounter with any of our women in service.
Person Specification
Skills
* Confident and effective communicator.
* Good standard of oral communication.
Experience
* Personal lived experience of reproductive trauma (1-year post experience).
* Willingness to complete necessary training (2 hours per week for 8 weeks).
Any invitation to interview will be sent to the email account stated on your application form.
If the role you have applied for requires a Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) check we will administer this as part of your pre-employment checks. Please note, you will be required to repay the cost on appointment. This will be collected via a salary deduction. You can choose whether to pay this over 1-3 months from your salary or as a one-off payment on commencement in post. The level of check required depends on the role that you have been offered. Currently, the charges are - Basic DBS check £25.50, Standard DBS check £25.50 and Enhanced DBS check £53.50.
You are encouraged where possible, to register for the DBS update service. This is an annual registration fee of £16. By registering for the update service you will not have the additional cost of repeated disclosures.
Should you withdraw your application, you may be required to reimburse the cost of the DBS check.
DBS checks remain free of charge for volunteer positions.
By submitting an application for this vacancy you are confirming your agreement to the above in the event you are successfully appointed.
The DBS Code of Practice can be accessed here.
Please ensure that you read the Person Specification attached below as your application will be judged against this.
Please note that every effort will be made to keep the vacancy live until the published closing date, though there may be instances where such interest is generated, that for administrative reasons the post may close earlier.
Please note that in line with national NHS guidelines this Trust operates a strict non-smoking policy. Members of staff are not permitted to smoke on Trust premises or grounds at any time nor take breaks during working hours for the purposes of smoking.
The Trust does not offer interview expenses to shortlisted candidates unless indicated in the advert.
Employer Certification / Accreditation Badges
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
If you would like to attend a virtual drop-in session to find out more about the volunteer role, or to arrange an informal chat, please contact Kate Johnson.
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