Person specification and job description

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

Hours: 21-36 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: £25,110 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.

This supervisor role, supervising the work of our dedicated and skilled case workers is initially offered on a 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.

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 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 experienced supervisors with a background in providing supervision of case workers who in turn provide both emotional support and practical research and advocacy for vulnerable people suddenly bereaved, achieving meaningful outcome goals relating to their wellbeing. This is a demanding role, only appropriate for those with extensive experience of:

• frontline care for people in crisis with acute vulnerabilities and risks;
• using a case management support framework, involving multiple contacts with clients;
• research and advocacy – getting crucial things done for clients through external agencies;
• supervision of people engaged in undertaking the above duties;
• experience of a case management review process and safeguarding and active monitoring, and escalation of cases with health and safety needs;
• significant resilience, and willingness to be professionally developed and clinically supervised.

We are particularly 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), combined with experience of supervising people working in such roles.

This is not a counselling role, and people with counselling backgrounds alone should not apply. While 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 lead and supervise a team of case workers to provide effective support to people bereaved in sudden ways including COVID-19 with vulnerabilities and acute needs.

Tasks

• Provide day to day guidance and supervision to a small team of case workers to deliver an outcome-based support service to aid the recovery of people bereaved and with vulnerabilities through effective case management.
• Allocate case work across the team and liaise with agencies referring into the service.
• Deliver case review meetings with case workers, ensuring needs and risks of clients are met and work and outcomes recorded including quality assurance of safeguarding.
• Review all cases weekly and triage the high risk and vulnerable case needs.
• Ensure all support is delivered in a confidential and professional manner, adhering to safeguarding legislation and the latest data protection regulations.
• Ensure that all support meets service standard operating policies and procedures, inclusive of safeguarding and risk management, and make recommendations for continuous improvement.
• Provide assessments and decisions around complex intervention planning, including escalation of cases requiring clinical assessment.
• Ensure that callers’ identified needs are met satisfactorily, within professional boundaries, to outcome goals, with those outcomes recorded.

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.