Mental Health and Wellbeing Coach

Job responsibilities

Job Purpose

To work within primary care to assess and offer help, support and education to individuals or groups with their mental health and to liaise closely with the multidisciplinary team.

Work alongside the mental health practitioners and support their role through both individual and group work for patients struggling with conditions such as anxiety, emotional instability, past trauma, and chronic pain.

Health and wellbeing coaches support people to take proactive steps to improve the way they manage their physical and mental health conditions, based on what matters to them. They support people to develop their knowledge, skills, confidence in managing their health and care, to improve their health outcomes and quality of life and support them making changes in health related behaviours. Health coaches do this by coaching and motivating people through multiple sessions to identify their needs and to set goals for themselves, and through providing access to interventions such as self-management education and peer support.

Health and wellbeing coaches manage and prioritise a caseload, according to the needs, priorities and support required by individuals in the caseload. They identify when a persons needs are beyond the scope of the health and wellbeing coach role and refer them back to other health professionals or organisations. Health and wellbeing coaches may work with people by phone, by video conference, or face-to-face on a one to one basis and in groups.

The successful candidate will be compassionate, reflective and self-aware and will enjoy working with a wide range of people. They will have good communication and negotiation skills and a firm belief that people have untapped resources within them, that can be developed by providing high quality, non-judgemental support. They will be proactive with a flexible attitude, keen to work as part of a team and committed to developing themselves in this skilled role and supporting colleagues to do the same.

Health and wellbeing coaches are a key part of the PCN multidisciplinary team. They often work alongside social prescribing link workers and care co-ordinators to provide an all encompassing approach to personalised care and promote and embed the personalised care approach across PCNs.

Health and wellbeing coaches will have access to ongoing supervision, skills development, and support so they are able to further build their skills and experience within the role.

There may be a need to work remotely depending on the requirements of the role.

Please note that the health and wellbeing coach works under delegation of a registered health professional.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

The duties and responsibilities of the post holder are detailed below, although the precise accountabilities of any job may be expected to change over time. Job holders would be contacted over any proposed changes before implementation.

Provide one-to-one and group health coaching support for people based on what is important to them, with the aim of:

• improving peoples knowledge, skills and confidence in managing their health condition/s, empowering and motivating people to set goals to improve their health outcomes, and supporting them to change their health related behaviour.
• Manage and prioritise a caseload, in accordance with the needs, priorities and support required by individuals in the caseload. Along with a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies, because the persons needs are beyond the scope of the health and wellbeing coach role e.g. when there is a change in the persons health condition or where unmet clinical support needs are identified.
• Work as part of a multidisciplinary, multi-agency team to promote health coaching and to be an ambassador for Personalised Care and Supported Self-Management, modelling the coaching approach in their work.
• Ensure that GPs, practice nurses, practice pharmacists and other members of the primary care team understand the health and wellbeing coach role, how to refer to them, and which patients may particularly benefit from health coaching.
• Support local health, social care and voluntary sector professionals to make appropriate referrals to the service. Promote and raise awareness of the health coaching service particularly to groups and communities that experience barriers to access.
• Attend and contribute to team, practice, and PCN meetings and events as required by the service.
• Work flexibly, adapting to the needs of the service and client group while maintaining the integrity of the role.
• Participate in regular health coaching supervision and continual learning. This may include, but is not limited to, any or all the following:

o Regular contact with supervisors

o Refresher training sessions

o Buddying with peers

o Peer support sessions

o 1:1 support from a practitioner with more health coaching experience

o Action learning sets

o e-learning to revisit or deepen training

o On-going improvements to systems and processes

• Collect service user experience and impact of health coaching as part of the delivery of personalised care. Participate and collect information that measures the impact of health coaching as an intervention that supports embedding personalised care into local health systems e.g. collect data entry relating to the health coaching activity in GP, local authority, and hospital clinical systems or other systems, as required.
• Develop and maintain close links with the Social Prescribing team.

Key tasks

1. Provide personalised support

a. To triage individuals' mental health needs through the primary care setting;

b. Delivering and supporting the self-management of chronic pain group clinics and collecting outcomes;

c. Meet people on a one-to-one or group consultation basis, by phone, video conference, or face-to-face;

d. Give people time to tell their stories and focus on what matters to the person;

e. Build trust and respect with the person, providing non-judgemental and non-discriminatory support, respecting diversity and lifestyle choices;

f. Work from a strength-based approach focusing on a persons assets;

g. Use a structured framework/model approach to coach individuals across a series of sessions to: identify whats important to them; set personal goals and appropriate steps; build skills and confidence to achieve goals; and use problem-solving to work through challenges;

h. Work with the principles of self-management to actively support:

• shared decision making with healthcare professionals;
• effective engagement with personalised health and care plans;
• support delivery of self-management education and peer support;
• proactive engagement with social prescribing, connecting people to community-based activities which support their health and wellbeing;
• proactive engagement with individually sourced activities and support
• access to a care-coordinator and/or a personal health budget, where needed;

2. Referrals

a. Promote health coaching, its role in supported self-management as a part of personalised care, in addressing health inequalities and the wider determinants of health;

b. As part of the PCN multidisciplinary team, build relationships with staff in GP practices within the PCN, attending relevant multidisciplinary meetings, giving information and feedback on health coaching;

c. Be proactive in developing strong links with local organisations to encourage referrals, recognising what they need to be confident in the service to make appropriate referrals;

d. Work in partnership with local agencies to raise awareness of health coaching and how improving peoples knowledge, confidence, skills can enable them to improve their ability to manage their long-term conditions, reduce reliance on clinical services and improve patient experience and outcomes;

e. Provide referral organisations with regular updates about health coaching, including information on how to encourage appropriate referrals;

f. Seek regular feedback about the quality of service and impact of health coaching;

g. Be proactive in encouraging equality and inclusion and case-finding, through self-referrals and connecting with diverse local communities, particularly those communities that are less likely to engage with statutory bodies.

Working hours will be between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday and will involve some weekend working (especially Saturdays) at the agreed standard rate. Thirty minutes unpaid break must be taken at lunchtime.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of using coaching approaches/frameworks and models or other helping strategies e.g. Motivational Interviewing
• Experience of working with and supporting a diverse range of people with different backgrounds and needs.

Desirable

• Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team
• Experience of working in health and social care care/community development setting or similar
• Experience of successful partnership working across statutory, voluntary and community sector
• Networking experience

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• A good understanding of the evidence base and development of self-management in the UK
• An understanding of the biopsychosocial model of health and the social determinants of health.
• Able to work within a biopsychosocial model, using a range of tools and techniques to enable and support people, such as agenda setting, goal setting, problem solving
• Demonstrable skills in supporting behaviour change
• Excellent group and one-to-one facilitation skills including conflict resolution
• Skilled in active and reflective listening, building trust and rapport quickly
• Good people management skills
• Ability to work with minimal supervision and act decisively and ask for help when needed
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Proficient in Microsoft Office and web-based services
• Ability to travel across multiple sites

Desirable

• Understanding of the importance and process of helping people with long-term conditions to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence in managing their health and the range of models and tools available.
• Understanding how to apply health coaching in group settings

Other

Essential

• Meets a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) reference standards and criminal record checks
• Ability to work flexible hours and travel out of area as necessary
• Understanding of and a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Desirable

• Proficient speaker of another language to aid communication with people in the community for whom English is a second language

Qualifications

Essential

• Completed a four day PCI accredited health coaching training course or be willing to complete one prior to taking referrals. The training can be found on the PCI website
• Completed Tier 1 level of practice/expertise for health and wellbeing coaches or willing and supported to do so

Desirable

• Coaching/counselling qualification/ experience or other relevant qualification/experience involving reflective listening skills.
• Relevant training and experience in Self-Management Education(SME)

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).