Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

NELFT are creating an innovative new team at the heart of the organisation. Its purpose will be to drive culture change towards more relational models of care and ways of working, key to the success of this team will be a substantive lived experience lead. Putting relationships first is a fundamental ethos that we want to bring about across our clinical teams and this will require a concerted programme of action on a number of fronts. These are all key initiatives that aim to cultivate a compassionate, relational and person-centred ethos across the organisation.

This role will support the work and involve a range of skills, including strategic collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including lived experience networks and leads, both within and external to the organisation; engagement with research and development and quality improvement departments; development and delivery of front-line staff training and change programmes; and promotion of this agenda and ethos across the organisation. 

The new Relational Care Team is currently led jointly by the Expert Advisor - Relational Care and the Clinical Director for Community Mental Health Transformation. As the team develops the post holder will also work closely with a Relational Care Project Manager, an admin team and a group of Open Dialogue trained coaches, who will work jointly across the Relational Care Team and the Trust’s innovative Dialogue First service.

Main duties of the job

Lived Experience leadership is essential to ensuring meaningful co-production across service design and quality improvement, it is central to service transformation.

The Lived Experience Lead for Relational Care will be required to use their own lived experience, knowledge and expertise to support the organisation in developing and implementing a Trust wide approach to relational care, building and maintaining good working relationships with key stakeholders and colleagues across NELFT and system-wide partner agencies. This role involves work across the whole pathway of care from community through to acute/inpatient services, children and young people, adults, older adults and learning disabilities services. 

The post holder will work as part of the new Relational Care Team, leading and taking operational responsibility for supporting, promoting and developing co-production as a central element of the Relational Care Team’s work with each directorate (Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering, Barking & Dagenham, and the Acute & Rehabilitation Directorate) and teams across the Trust. 

The post holder will understand, work in alignment with and actively promote the key principles underpinning NELFT’s aspirations for a relational care approach.

Working for our organisation

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust.All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focussing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes.The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).

High Cost Area Supplement

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (with a minimum of £4,551 to a maximum of £5,735).

COVID-19 Vaccination

We continue to encourage all staff to ensure that they have been double vaccinated and received their booster. We recognise that taking the vaccine provides the best defence against COVID 19 for our patients, our staff and their families.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should sufficient applications be received.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will be responsible for attending and presenting at meetings, workshops and training and meaningfully engaging with a range of people with lived experience, their families and carers, peer workers, lived experience leads and professionals at various levels of seniority, from frontline to Board. They will be required to bring a lived experience lens to advising on service improvement and delivery, and ensure they are able to understand and represent the voices of people from a diverse range of backgrounds and with different lived experience to their own. 

The post holder will also be the co-chair of the Trust wide Relational Care Faculty, which will oversee the culture change that we are aiming for.

The post holder will play a key role in advising on and developing, along with other lived experience leads within the Trust and Relational Care Team leads, a supportive infrastructure for peers/people in lived experience roles, recognising the emotional toll this work takes, and facilitating equitable access to remuneration, training, development and career opportunities.

The post holder will be responsible for overseeing and evaluating ways of working that are developed to support co-production, peer involvement and lived experience representation across the Trust as part of this relational approach.

Leadership, service development and improvement:

•Provide lived experience leadership and specialist advice to bring about broad cultural change in the development and implementation of a Trust wide relational care approach. 

•Ensure that co-production and lived experience involvement is central to the relational care approach offered across NELFT and in line with national best practice and a compassionate and relational ethos that is trauma-informed, autism-informed and equity-focused. 

•Ensure that the voices of people with lived experience are integrated with clinical treatment; through close working with colleagues and role-modelling the values and principles already outlined. 

•Work with directorates/services/teams to ensure lived experience roles are integrated into teams and there is mutual understanding of the remit and value of these roles. 

•Contribute to the establishment of a sustainable Trust lived experience model and frameworks, expanding the framework of support, development and training for people working in lived experience and peer support roles. 

•Contribute to the development of procedures and guidelines and a supporting governance Framework, as they relate to the work of the Relational Care Team both internally and in relation to roles with delivery partners where appropriate. 

•Support external relationships with the wider system, possible research activities and further development opportunities.

•Represent the Relational Care Team and actively contribute to service, directorate, Trust and wider NHS groups. 

•Co-chair the Trust wide Relational Care Faculty.

•Participate in and contribute to identified governance groups, shared learning forums and lived experience support/development infrastructure groups/activities.

•Ensure regular peer-based supervision/reflective practice is provided to peer workers within teams making sure that interactions are recorded, accurate, clear and documented.

Use of AI

Applications for this role should be written by the applicant. If artificial intelligence (AI) programmes are used then the application may be rejected due to this document being an important part of the assessment process. This does not prevent applicants seeking appropriate support with applications should they need to for the purposes of any declared disability.

Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role and working at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. We encourage you to refer closely to this when completing your application.

We welcome your application even if you do not meet all the criteria listed in the person specification. Any development needs to help you succeed in the role, can be discussed at the interview stage.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

NVQ level 2 or equivalent standard of literacy and numeracy. Educated to degree or has gained equivalent/significant level of work experience related to lived experience roles in mental health settings.

Desirable criteria

Accredited Peer support worker training or further education/training in areas of user and/or carer involvement and/or mental health.

Experience

Essential criteria

Direct experience of mental health distress and use of secondary mental health services Experience of working in a lived experience/peer support role within a mental health NHS Trust, national body, voluntary sector organisation/charity or similar Experience of co-production, working successfully in collaboration with multi-disciplinary groups and other people with lived experience

Desirable criteria

Direct experience of mental health hospital inpatient admission

Knowledge

Essential criteria

Expert knowledge and understanding of the values and principles outlined in the job description above Knowledge and understanding of relational approaches to care, in particular the principles of an Open Dialogue approach Knowledge and understanding of how lived experience can enhance service transformation and meaningfully influence and support others

Skills

Essential criteria

Effective and relational leadership skills Ability to work with compassion and empathy to support, meet and promote the needs and voices of people who use services, their families and carers Ability to understand and represent the voices of people from a diverse range of backgrounds and with different lived experience to your own Ability to manage situations/ conversations that may provoke difficult feelings in a respectful and professional manner, actively seeking support to do so as needed Ability to collaboratively problem solve and actively share learning

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff. A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity. Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors. Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.