Employment Advisor

Salary: £37,800 per year

Role:- IPS Employment Specialist

Location:- Roles available across West Midlands

Salary:- £37,800DOE

Working on the Work to Recovery contract, embedded with Primary Care, Community Health Teams, and the wider community you will be delivering employment support to participants in parallel to the health treatment being delivered by NHS clinicians. Working intensively with a maximum caseload of 30 participants who have a health condition which impacts on their ability to gain work or stay in work. Assisting them to obtain and sustain employment that is consistent with their vocational goals, following the eight principles of IPS. Meeting and exceeding performance targets for referrals, programme starts, employer engagement, job starts and sustainment, in compliance with contractual guidelines and quality procedures.

Responsibilities

· Complete extensive outreach activities to secure referrals

• Build relationships with clinical and community health teams to generate referrals and create collaborative working partnerships with NHS clinicians including GPs, Practice Managers, Nursing staff and wider clinical teams
• Attend meetings with clinical teams, where possible, and communicate with team members to integrate vocational services into health treatment processes
• Conduct initial meeting with participant to build rapport, gain consent to proceed with the service.
• Support participants to understand their skills, aspirations and goals through the completion of a Vocational Profile and produce an Action Plan to obtain and sustain competitive employment in line with their preferences
• Assisting participants to understand their benefits through the delivery or sign posting for In Work Benefit calculations and sourcing additional financial support
• Focus on rapid job search with the participant, whilst utilising local support networks to help them overcome their barriers to employment
• To develop effective working relationships with a range of external agencies who might be better able to help individuals to achieve their employment goals.
• Develop collaborative working relationships with employers to enable support to be provided to participants in work, and to help employers understand how to better support their staff. In particular, ensuring the service is focused on accessing the hidden labour market to unlock potential jobs that match with participant preference
• Source job opportunities for participants through tailored job search and regular contact with employers
• Promote the benefits of supporting participants to access employment, aiming to raise the profile of IPS services and raise expectations around the ability of participants to access paid employment
• To assess individual support needs related to work which might typically include help with benefits, travel to work, managing health at work etc. and sign post on for support needs
• To deliver Thrive presentations to potential participants and community partners as required
• Provide individualised in work support using the place then train model and ensuring effective support networks are in place to achieve sustainment
• To maintain a professional relationship with the participants of the programme and with other staff, with particular attention to confidentiality and maintenance of professional boundaries
• Management of an active caseload of up to 30 participants to meet personal and team targets and KPIs and provide caseload support internally to colleagues
• Track customers to monitor their progress. Gather the evidence required as part of the reporting and claims process

Essential Criteria

• Demonstrate experience at generating programme referrals
• Demonstrable experience of successfully working to targets
• Proactive approach to engaging with participants and sourcing potential referrals
• High level of optimism, initiative and effective interpersonal skills in order to engage effectively with participants, clinical teams and employers
• Focused approach to supporting job search and progression with a sense of urgency
• Proactive diary management and organisational skills
• Ability to plan and organise workload to meet required targets and deadlines
• Accurate identification of participant support needs both pre and post-employment, with appropriate interventions delivered by self, or sourced through additional support networks
• Creating and delivering candidate Action Plans
• Experience working with employers to develop job opportunities for participants, and to support them whilst in work
• Attention to detail and ability to work to a defined delivery structure