Person specification and job description

Contract type: Fixed term contract until the end of October 2020 but may be extended subject to funding.

Hours: 14-36 hours per week, worked between 8am-8pm. Please provide your preferred working hours and pattern on application.

Location: Homeworking – successful candidates will be supplied with the necessary IT equipment to undertake the role.

Salary: £22,320 FTE

About Sudden

As a pandemic response, Sudden, the charity service for people bereaved in Sudden ways, is offering people who are bereaved suddenly or too soon (including by COVID-19 and other causes), and who have vulnerabilities and acute needs, a case worker providing up to ten interventions of phone-based care spread over the first ten weeks of someone’s bereavement, to provide support and practical help and protect wellbeing at a critical time of shock and loss.

The role is offered on an initial fixed term contract until the end of October 2020 but is planned to be extended permanently, subject to funding.

Due to the urgency of this service provision, applicants are particularly sought who can start immediately or within weeks and are available for a 4-day training course.

More about who we help

We are particularly, at this time, helping people who have a range of complexities in their lives compounding their sudden bereavement such as trauma relating to loss, mental or physical illness, lack of income, social barriers such as lack of social networks including isolation, issues relating to children, youth or older people, or multiple bereavements at once.

More about how we help

Our case workers help vulnerable suddenly bereaved people, some of whom can be vulnerable or high risk, to identify their emotional, practical and specialist needs and agree outcome goals supported around a care plan.

Our case workers provide emotional support and research, and work with, community agencies to advocate for their clients and get help they need. About half case workers’ time is spent talking to their clients, and the other half getting things done for them.

Case workers are supported by a professional management team, providing training, procedures, and operational and clinical supervision.

Our impact

Case workers enable clients to feel safe, supported, connected and stable. The goal is to enable clients to have a significantly lower chance of developing conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a lower chance of facing isolation and social disadvantage.

More about us

Sudden, at www.sudden.org, is a clinically-directed, charitable service that is born out of the Sudden project, which provides and disseminates professional development tools and standards relating to care of people bereaved suddenly.

Sudden is hosted by Brake, the road safety charity registered 1093244, which operates the UK’s National Road Victim Service (NRVS). The NRVS is an acclaimed and government funded service for people bereaved suddenly in road crashes and is offered through all police forces to everyone bereaved on roads. It operates in the same way as the Sudden service, through case managed support helping people bereaved in road crashes with their emotions and practical and procedural challenges. The NRVS came second in the 2019 Helpline Partnership awards.

About you

This is a vital but challenging role, only for professionals.

Sudden is seeking people with a background in providing emotional support and practical research and advocacy for vulnerable suddenly bereaved people in the early days after a serious psychological trauma such as the death of a loved one in violent or unexpected circumstances.

This is a demanding frontline support and liaison role, only appropriate for those with:

• extensive experience of frontline care for people in crisis with acute vulnerabilities and risks;
• experience of using a case management methodology support framework;
• research and advocacy skills – you get crucial things done through liaison with external agencies;
• significant resilience, and willingness to be professionally developed and clinically supervised.

We are interested in receiving applications, not to the exclusion of others, from people with a track record and solid references relating to backgrounds working with people who have suffered sudden bereavement or violence (terror attacks, military deaths, homicide, etc.) or working with people with heightened vulnerabilities (criminal backgrounds, addiction, mental or physical illness).

This is not a counselling role, and people with counselling backgrounds alone should not apply. While your counselling skills may help provision of emotional support, your experience must involve you providing crisis intervention in the early days following a traumatic event.

Our commitment

You will be working for an acclaimed and professionally run charity that is clinically directed. The role requires you to pass an intensive 4-day training programme and be supported with clinical supervision.

Job description

Purpose

To provide frontline case worker support for up to ten weeks to people bereaved in sudden ways including COVID-19 with vulnerabilities and acute needs, to meet those needs and enable recovery through crisis intervention support free of financial hardship, isolation, or other poor outcomes.

Tasks

• Manage your own caseload.
• Provide support within an outcome- based support framework including emotional support, provision of information, advocacy, risk management and safeguarding procedures.
• Carry out needs’ assessments following agreed processes and timescales, including a support plan with identified goals.
• Identify and manage any immediate support needs where necessary.
• Systematic and comprehensive recording of calls and associated work, using relevant systems effectively and in line with the latest data protection regulations.
• Attending training / external debrief supervision sessions to promote own well-being.
• Complying with legal, regulatory, ethical, and social requirements.

This is a demanding role that requires resilience. We recognise that many people have challenges at this time so please do consider this when applying.

To apply

Email your CV to Brake’s Chief Operating Officer, Ross Moorlock: rmoorlock@brake.org.uk

Applications will be reviewed and processed as soon as they are received. Interviews will take place online as and when suitable candidates are identified.

Due to the nature of Brake’s work, we cannot consider applications from traffic offenders. Brake is an equal opportunity employer.