Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity to offer a Mental Health Navigator / Link Worker post within Community Mental Health (CMHT). 

• Will you enjoy working within a team of dedicated, friendly people who believe in helping people by addressing wider determinants of health, such as debt, poor housing and physical inactivity? 
• Are you passionate about providing support to people who have a serious mental illness (SMI) to enable them to connect with their communities, addressing barriers such as social isolation?
• Can you effectively engage with a diverse range of VCSE organisations, NHS Teams including Primary Care?
• Can you work with individuals to co-produce goals based on the persons priorities, interests, values and motivations
• If that sounds like you – then we want to hear from you! 

You will be based at Weavers Croft, alongside the clinical lead. This is a base for mental health community teams.  The post would mainly involve working in and around Gloucestershire with an expectation of some out of county visits.

You will work collaboratively with VCSE organisations, and primary care working with individuals who have a SMI or at serious risk of developing one.  You will be a key role in the Locality Community Partnership meeting held in each locality, bringing together key partners to plan and deliver collaborative care for people with mental health complexities.

Main duties of the job

• Proactively spending time with specified VCSE organisations including attending meetings and forums, and attending activities which include clients of the VCSE services
• Build capability, confidence and resilience in the VCSE to identify and support individuals in emotional distress; and recognise and respond to suicide risk.
• Increase VCSE awareness of, and access to mental health services and available training to enable them to signpost/refer effectively.
• Support earlier identification (on the part of both the VCSE and Mental Health Services) of people in crisis by enabling concerns to be communicated quickly.
• Help Improve connectivity between mental health and third sector services.
• Support the personalisation agenda.
• Supporting GP practices to connect with GHC mental health services.
• Carrying a limited caseload only to support people referrals across services and broker access to services

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Working for our organisation

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people’s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us.  In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views.  It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust’s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

 This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement.  However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.