Job summary
Please note that this role is not eligible for Sponsorship

Occupational Therapy Assistant - Restart and Recovery Team
Pendleview, Royal Blackburn Hospital

Are you a person who enjoys working with people and is an excellent communicator? Are you looking for an opportunity to be involved with a team comprising of people who care passionately about a good patient experience and enabling recovery? Are you the kind of person who enjoys challenges, learning and developing you skills?

If so we have a rare opportunity for an Occupational Therapy Assistant working within the Restart and Recovery team at Pendleview.

The successful candidate will work within the occupational therapy service alongside a strong multidisciplinary team helping people with acute mental health issues to achieve a successful and timely discharge from hospital.

Experience of leading groups, working individually with people and using activity to help promote independence would also be a desirable ability.

The successful candidate will be working with a friendly team and have access to good facilities and support from managers.

If you feel you have a genuine caring nature, enjoy challenges and are enthusiastic about providing the best possible service for people to live satisfying, independent lives we would be very keen to meet you.

If you require any more information please contact us using the details provided

Main duties of the job
We are looking for someone with a compassionate nature who can communicate successfully with people who have different abilities and presentations. They will be a team-player who can undertake some duties independently and at times act upon their own initiative. Knowledge of social inclusion and housing and benefits would be an advantage, alongside having excellent workload management skills.

The occupational therapy team consists of qualified Occupational therapists, Occupational therapy assistants, and Recovery Support Workers, all of who focus on enabling patients to achieve optimum independence as part of recovering their ordinary lives. The senior staff offer regular clinical, professional and line management supervision as well as opportunities to attend internal and external training.

Working directly with service users for at least 70% of the time, this post holder will support occupational therapists to achieve this aim through supporting the assessment and analyse of strengths and needs, providing interventions, reporting on progress, and supporting service users to care to achieve their personal goals and aspirations.

Service requirements may involve some flexibility of work hours and the post holder is expected to respond to service user need relating to this.

About us
LSCFT values diversity and inclusion, recognising that talent from varied backgrounds creates a flexible, creative, and effective workforce. We actively challenge discrimination and welcome applications from all, regardless of age, disability (including those with experience of accessing or caring for someone who has accessed mental health or learning disability services), ethnicity, gender, religion, belief, or sexual orientation.

Our aim is to reflect the communities we serve, so we particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups. If you'd like to discuss your application, please ask.

We also welcome individuals with lived experience relevant to the role or service area, as your insight brings authenticity to our services.

LSCFT support flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours and flexi-time.

The wellbeing of our people is at the heart of everything we do. We offer a wide range of resources, tools and support to help you thrive both in and out of work.

Explore our full wellbeing offer here: Keeping our workforce well

Job responsibilities
Please see attached the job description and person specification for more information about this role.

Qualifications
Essential

• GCSE/level 5 or above in English and Maths or equivalent.
• Qualification in health or care e.g. NVQ LEVEL 4 Training to Diploma or foundation level
• Assistant practitioner qualification

Knowledge
Essential

• Ability to demonstrate understanding of Occupational Therapy
• Ability to demonstrate understanding of the client group with which the post holder will work e.g. Mental health difficulties,

Experience
Essential

• Previous experience of working in a support worker role with people who experience mental health difficulties with an understanding of the roles of other professions within the multi-disciplinary team
• Experience of working with people with a broad range of Mental Health conditions and people who have cognitive, physical, learning disability or challenging behaviour
• Previous experience working in therapy/care settings e.g. inpatient settings or social services agency/department

Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

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