Peer WorkerinMiddlesbroughinMiddlesbroughPUBLISHED WED 12 MAR 2025
As a Peer Worker, you’ll connect with service users and their families, offering 1:1 support and facilitating peer support groups that create safe, non-judgmental spaces for shared learning and growth. You’ll be part of a dedicated team where your insights and experiences will not only be valued but will actively help shape service development and empower those you work with. With comprehensive training and ongoing support, you’ll gain the confidence and skills to champion recovery and tackle stigma while building meaningful relationships within the community. If you're passionate about helping others and ready to make a positive impact, we invite you to apply and be part of this transformative journey.
Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust are pleased to announce that we are currently recruiting Peer Workers for our Male and Female Secure Inpatient Wards in Ridgeway.These roles will be based at Roseberry Park Hospital.
Peer support is when people with shared experiences connect to build safe, trusting and non-judgmental relationships where we learn and grow together. Peer workers are people who have experience of mental health challenges and accessing services for mental health care, and are employed, trained and supported to work to the TEWV Peer Support Values and use their experiences to support others.
For this role, we are looking for people who have:
Personal experience of accessing secondary or inpatient mental health services - including in Secure Inpatient Services or Prison.
Relevant experience of mental health challenges. Lived experience including homelessness and use of drugs and alcohol are also welcomed.
- Personal experience of using your lived experience to support others, for example in a paid role, in volunteering, or in a user led environment.
You must have the Right to Work in the UK in order to be successfully appointed to this role. Please note, this role does not meet the required eligibility criteria for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa and therefore the Trust is unable to offer sponsorship for this particular role.
These are challenging but rewarding roles supporting people with a wide range of experiences.
We welcome and value applications from people with personal lived experience of Secure Inpatient Services, Prison, contact with the criminal justice system or experience of being under experiences of having your liberty or freedom of movement/decision making impacted by restrictions.
Your time in post will start with attending our peer support training alongside other people starting peer support roles with us. This training is delivered by people with their own lived experience who also have direct experience of working in peer roles themselves.
From there your work will involve:
- Providing 1:1 peer support to people on the ward (this may involve supporting family / carers too)
- Setting up and facilitating / co-facilitating peer support groups
- Working into team meetings to support service users' voices to be heard and bring lived experience expertise into team processes.
- Supporting service development within the teams you work in
- Building connections with a range of people and organisations within the system (including other peer support workers / providers).
To support you with this work you will receive ongoing regular 1:1 and group supervision and will be able to access a range of other peer connection and development structures.
About us
These Peer Worker roles will involve working to support current service users both 1:1 and in groups as appropriate. Drawing on your own experience of mental health challenges, you will walk alongside others on their journey in a supportive peer relationship built on our core peer values of authenticity, relationship, validation, respect, mutuality, and empowerment. You will listen non-judgmentally to create safe spaces where people feel heard. You will approach the peer relationship with compassion and curiosity. You will recognise and value peoples strengths, diversity, and expertise in themselves. You will be aware of the impacts of trauma and committed to the importance of working in ways which are sensitive to the needs of trauma survivors.
You also will be an integrated and valued member of the team. Peer Worker roles involve contributing peer values and the knowledge, skills and expertise that come with lived experience of mental health challenges and mental health services. Important parts of this role also include working within the team to help service users voices be heard and to promote recovery values and trauma informed approaches. Peer Workers will be supported to challenge both individual and structural instances of stigma and discrimination related to mental health and other forms of exclusion.
Please see the uploaded job description or approach us for an informal chat if you would like further details on the post.
Please note - Individuals successful at application stage will attend a recruitment day to give them an opportunity to learn more about the role and to demonstrate their values and skills. There will be a shortlisting process after the recruitment day to identify candidates for interview.
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