IPS Peer Support Worker
Salary: £14,722.80 – (£24,538 FTE)
Contract: Permanent
Hours: 21 hours per week
Location: Greater Manchester
Responsible to: IPS Team Leader
Additional: Must be able to travel independently across the borough
Mileage: 45p per mile
Do you want to make a genuine difference and transform someone’s life?
We are looking for a motivated, passionate individual with lived experience of mental ill health (whether that’s through your own experience of mental ill-health or if you’re currently on your own recovery journey) who wants to kickstart or continue a career in the supported employment sector. This position, with on-the-job training, is a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference and support those with mental health needs across Greater Manchester.
As a Peer Support Worker, you will play a vital role in helping people with mental health support needs find meaningful and fulfilling employment through personal development guidance. You’ll receive all the training and support you need to take on the role, develop your skills and have access to a broad range of opportunities within Pure Innovations.
We welcome applications from all experience levels and backgrounds. What you will need is the ability to motivate and build relationships with service users, strong organisational skills, the confidence to communicate and engage with a range of employers, work independently in the community, and a fundamental belief that anyone with a mental health condition can work.
Role Purpose:
You will work with people experiencing mental health challenges, providing peer support, practical assistance and recovery-focused guidance to help them regain control of their lives and achieve their personal goals. Working alongside IPS Employment Specialists, you will support clients to access employment, build confidence, develop skills and connect with local services and opportunities. Using your lived experience, you will provide person-centred support, inspire hope, reduce barriers to employment and promote recovery in line with IMROC principles and the IPS model. You will also contribute to training, partnership working, referral development and community engagement, while maintaining accurate records and completing IMROC Peer Support Worker training to deliver high-quality, values-based support.
Core Responsibilities: This is an exciting and dynamic role, where no one day is the same and you’ll be making a genuine difference to people’s lives. Using the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model you’ll:
· Build supportive, respectful relationships with clients, using lived experience to inspire hope and employment aspirations.
· Support clients to identify strengths, overcome barriers and access employment, community activities and specialist services.
· Deliver structured peer support in line with IMROC principles and recovery-focused practice.
· Work collaboratively with Employment Specialists, clinical teams, employers and referral partners to promote IPS and reduce stigma.
· Support training, awareness-raising, community engagement and participation in events and service development initiatives.
· Maintain accurate records, manage your caseload effectively and work independently to deliver high-quality support.
· Take part in localised networking opportunities to raise awareness of the IPS:SMI service and build relationships with potential referrers.
· Develop quarterly co-production sessions with clients from your local area to gain qualitative evaluation insights into the programme.
Other:
· Maintain accurate case records and follow all administrative, monitoring and data recording requirements.
· Work independently and consistently to deliver effective IPS and peer support services.
· Complete IMROC Peer Support Worker training and apply recovery-focused, peer support best practice in daily work.
· Keep up to date with developments in vocational rehabilitation, mental health and peer support.
· Support service improvement through co-production with service users and the sharing of recovery and employment success stories.
· Adhere to all relevant policies and procedures, including safeguarding, information governance and confidentiality.
· Commit to ongoing learning, mandatory training and professional development.
· Work flexibly to meet service and client needs.
· Undertake any other duties appropriate to the role as required by management.
Person Specification
Qualifications and training
· Willing to complete training in the IPS approach.
· Willingness to complete a level 3 IMROC Peer Support Work training qualification
· Trained in IPS approach
· QCF in Advice & Guidance (Level 3)
· A valid UK Driving Licence
Experience
· Own personal lived experience of recovery from mental health difficulties
· Understanding of mental health support needs, or a similar client group within health, social services, or the voluntary sector
· Experience of managing multiple tasks at any one time
· Experience of working assertively to influence decision makers
· Experience of supporting people to find support for a variety of challenges
· Experience of working within mental health services
· Previous experience of delivering a service using the IPS model is a bonus
· Experience of delivering training workshops
· Experience of working with someone on a one-to-one basis
Pay: £14,722.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company pension
- Cycle to work scheme
- Employee discount
- Employee mentoring programme
- Referral programme
Application question(s):
- Do you have lived experience of mental health challenges? If comfortable, please share.
- Are you able to reliably travel around your local authority area? Either by own vehicle or public transport - advise how you would commute.
- This role is part time - 21 hours per week spread over 3 days. Does that work for you?
Work Location: In person
