Suicide Bereavement Support Worker / Counsellor (BACP Registered)
Location: Field-based across the Black Country
Contract: Permanent, Part-Time 17.5 Hours
Salary: £13,228.50 (based on 17.5 hours)
Make a real difference when it matters most
At Rethink Mental Illness, we believe everyone deserves support, understanding and hope—especially during life’s most difficult moments.
We’re looking for a compassionate and skilled Suicide Bereavement Support Worker / Counsellor to join our Support After Suicide Service in the Black Country. In this role, you’ll walk alongside people navigating grief after suicide—helping them find strength, meaning, and ways to cope.
This is more than a counselling role. It’s an opportunity to be part of a service that reaches people at a deeply vulnerable time and supports them, their families, and their wider networks with empathy and expertise.
What you’ll be doing
You’ll deliver high-quality, person-centred support in community settings, working flexibly to meet people where they are—emotionally and physically.
Your work will include:
- Providing specialist suicide bereavement counselling tailored to individual needs
- Supporting people to understand and manage grief, build coping strategies, and move forward
- Carrying out risk assessments and safeguarding responsibilities
- Delivering 1:1 support, family sessions, and contributing to group support
- Working collaboratively with colleagues, partners, and local services
- Keeping clear, accurate clinical records and measuring outcomes
- Helping reduce waiting times by managing a structured caseload
- Building relationships across communities to improve access and awareness
- Contributing to the continuous improvement of the service
You’ll be part of a compassionate, multi-disciplinary team, delivering support face-to-face, by phone, and digitally.
About you
You bring both professional expertise and genuine empathy to your work.
Essential:
- Diploma in Counselling (or equivalent) and BACP registration/eligibility
- Experience delivering bereavement counselling
- Strong understanding of grief and loss
- Experience conducting assessments and managing risk
- Excellent communication and relationship-building skills
- Ability to work independently, manage a caseload, and remain resilient in emotionally demanding situations
- Commitment to inclusive, person-centred practice
- Willingness to work flexibly, including occasional evenings and weekends
Desirable:
- Experience with trauma-informed approaches
- Experience working with children and young people
- Knowledge of the Black Country
- Training in suicide prevention (e.g. ASIST, SafeTalk)
- Lived experience of bereavement by suicide
How you’ll work
- Field-based, working across the Black Country
- Flexible delivery including home visits, community settings, and remote support
- Core service hours: 10am–6pm, with some evening/weekend flexibility
- Working with around 150–200 referrals per year as part of a wider team
Ready to apply?
If you’re passionate about supporting people through grief and want to be part of a service that truly changes lives, we’d love to hear from you.
Apply now and help us provide hope when it’s needed most.
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.
