Location: Field-based (Cornwall & Isles of Scilly)
Hours: 24.5 hrs per week (0.70 FTE) in year 1 , increasing to 26.25 hours per week (0.75 FTE) in year two and 28 hours per week (0.80 FTE) in year 3
Contract: Permanent
Salary: £17,181.44
Make a difference to carers’ lives – every single day
At Rethink Mental Illness, we believe everyone severely affected by mental illness deserves a better quality of life. As a Mental Health Carers Specialist Advisor, you’ll play a vital role in supporting unpaid carers — people who are often the backbone of mental health support.
This is more than a job. It’s an opportunity to build meaningful relationships, empower carers, and ensure no one feels they are navigating mental health challenges alone.
What you’ll be doing
You’ll provide practical and emotional support to unpaid carers supporting someone with mental illness. Using a person-centred, strengths-based approach, you’ll help carers build confidence, access the right services and improve their wellbeing.
You will:
- Deliver one-to-one support, helping carers identify goals and create personalised support plans
- Provide information, advice, guidance and signposting to services and community support
- Help carers navigate mental health, health and social care systems
- Facilitate carer groups, courses and awareness events
- Complete Carers Assessments and support access to personal budgets
- Work collaboratively with health, social care and voluntary sector partners
- Promote inclusion and help identify hidden carers in the community
- Maintain accurate records and contribute to quality and service improvement
You’ll also play an important role in creating a safe, inclusive and responsive service, shaped by the voices and experiences of carers.
About the service
Our Cornwall Mental Health Carers Service supports unpaid carers across the county, offering tiered support ranging from short-term guidance to more intensive, ongoing help.
We work flexibly — providing support face-to-face, online, by phone, and in community settings — and collaborate with partner organisations to ensure joined-up care.
What you’ll bring
We’re looking for someone who is compassionate, proactive and values-driven, with a genuine commitment to supporting carers.
Essential:
- Experience supporting people in health, social care, community, or carers services
- Understanding of unpaid carers’ needs and challenges
- Knowledge of mental health and recovery
- Strong communication and relationship-building skills
- Ability to provide person-centred support and practical advice
- Confidence in managing risk and responding to safeguarding concerns
- Good IT skills and ability to manage a varied workload
- A relevant qualification or willingness to complete Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) within your first year
Desirable:
- Experience working directly with unpaid carers or families
- Experience facilitating groups or community activities
- Knowledge of local services and referral pathways
Why join us?
- Be part of a supportive, purpose-driven team
- Make a real difference to carers and families
- Access training and development opportunities
- Contribute to a service that values co-production and lived experience
Ready to apply?
If you’re passionate about supporting carers and want to be part of a team that’s leading change in mental health, we’d love to hear from you.
IND1
Why Work With Rethink Mental Illness?
At Rethink Mental Illness, we believe that when you feel supported, you can make the biggest difference. That’s why we offer a range of benefits to help you thrive:
- Inclusive Culture: Join staff networks that champion diversity and inclusion.
- Wellbeing Support: Access our Wellbeing Hub, Employee Assistance Programme, and the Unmind mental health app.
- Recognition & Rewards: Enjoy discounts, cashback offers, and celebrate achievements through our PULSE platform.
- Flexible Working & Generous Leave: Starting at 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays and your birthday off), with options to buy or sell extra days.
- Learning & Development: Grow your career with structured onboarding and training opportunities.
- Financial & Family Support: Contributory pension scheme, enhanced family leave, and travel benefits like season ticket loans and cycle-to-work schemes.
- Referral Bonus: Earn up to £300 for introducing someone to our team.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
Diversity is important to us, and we appreciate difference through difference, inclusiveness and belonging. It gives us a deeper understanding of the world, our society and the diverse communities we’re working with. By including everyone, we are able to draw on the unique experiences and expertise of our people to help shape and enrich our workplace and improve our services. One way we are doing is through our valued staff networks which play a critical and highly valued role in keeping us focused on creating a diverse, inclusive and engaged employer. We recognise and support staff networks and support groups for our ethnically diverse and LGBTQIA+ colleagues. We are also proud to have been awarded Disability Confident Employer status and are a signatory to the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter.
We aim for our workforce to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve; for those who work for us to feel heard, valued and feel they belong; and for our work to help tackle wider mental health inequalities. We therefore actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including applicants with lived experience of mental illness, those who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual and any other gender identity not expressed here (LGBTQIA+); people who are neurodiverse, have a health condition, or a disability or hidden disability and people from an ethnically diverse background - regardless of your age, religious or spiritual belief, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, political view or socio-economic status.
Becoming a truly anti-racist organisation
We have an ambition of become a truly anti-racist employer, campaigning organisation and service provider - and in our efforts to influence policy and wider societal factors impacting on mental health set out in our anti-racist statement . We have designed a multi-year anti-racist programme of work contained in our Race Equality Action Plan which demonstrates our intention to hold ourselves accountable and be judged on our progress on becoming a truly anti-racist organisation.
