South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

Mental Health Alliance Support Officer

The closing date is 15 August 2025

Job summary

1 x 30 hours per week - internal only

Hello, the Wakefield Mental Health Alliance Core Team is looking for a Support Officer to join us in bringing mental health services together to cooperate on improving mental health care for everyone in Wakefield

As the Wakefield Mental Health Alliance Support Officer you will be responsible for supporting the Wakefield Mental Health Alliance to coordinate improvement of mental health services across the Wakefield District. The team works closely with mental health and learning disability leads in the ICB in forming the core team that coordinates and leads on workstreams for the wider Alliance. As such you may also directly support ICB colleagues at times.

The Mental Health Alliance links all organisations providing mental health support to the Wakefield District and the ideal candidate would be confident in communicating with leads from across the statutory and VCSE services including at senior levels.

At the time of advertising, this role does not meet the minimum requirements set by UK Visas and Immigration to sponsor candidates to work in the UK. For this reason, we are unable to sponsor anyone for a skilled worker visa for this role.

We are happy to accept applications from candidates who can prove their right to work in the UK or via alternative visa routes. Such applications will be considered alongside all other applications.

Main duties of the job

The role also involves working flexibly to meet the needs of a busy team with a diverse portfolio in the face of changing structures and priorities at national and local level. This will include responsibilities for project support for ongoing transformation and development workstreams along with data sourcing and entry for our dashboards to support performance management and decision making.

Responsibilities will include organising and supporting the delivery of the priorities and projects for the Mental Health Alliance. This includes making meeting arrangements, developing agendas and minute taking at some key meetings such as our Alliance Partnership meeting, stakeholder meeting, and partner meeting to support mental health patients in the Emergency department etc.

All employees of the Trust are strongly encouraged to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to protect patients.

We are aware that an increasing number of applicants are using AI technology to generate responses on NHS Job application forms. We strongly discourage this and will conduct a thorough screening process before selecting candidates to progress to the next stage. If you are using AI to enhance your application, please disclose this in your NHS Jobs application form.

About us

We are a specialist NHS Foundation Trust that provides community, mental health and learning disability services for the people of Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield. We also provide low and medium secure services and are the lead for the west Yorkshire secure provider collaborative.

Our mission is to help people reach their potential and live well in their communities, we do this by providing high-quality care in the right place at the right time. We employ staff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make a difference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourage and welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, we value diversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

Being a foundation Trust means were accountable to our members, who can have a say in how were run. Around 14,300 local people (including staff) are members of our Trust.

Join us and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improving the mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet and help each year.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all colleagues and volunteers to share this commitment.

We do reserve to right to close vacancy before the advertised closing date if necessary, so please apply as soon as possible.

Date posted

01 August 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9378-QA01379

Job locations

Fieldhead Hospital

Ouchthorpe Lane

Wakefield

WF1 3SP

Job description

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

To be responsible for providing a support service to projects within the Wakefield Mental Health Alliance, identify solutions & resolving day-to-day project administration problems, acting as first point of contact for project enquiries, supporting project meetings and undertaking basic facilitation. Maintains project documentation, trains newly appointed staff and supports others in project tools and documentation

KEY RESULT AREAS:

Be responsible for providing and coordinating a comprehensive support service to projects, including general administration, project scheduling and basic facilitation using agreed service improvement tools and techniques.

Utilise significant personal initiative to deal with project issues on behalf of the Service Improvement team and process matters arising on a daily basis, taking appropriate action to ensure urgent issues are dealt with appropriately.

To lead on agreed aspects or stages of a project as directed and supported by the Mental Health Lead.

Communicate complex information clearly and effectively within the project team and others using a range of influencing and negotiating skills, receiving, handling and forwarding as necessary incoming and outgoing correspondence.

Maintain project procedures, to effect the efficient operation of the project support facility, including the development and maintenance of the Project Information and Management systems, monitoring progress of business cases and service improvement projects.

Collect and produce statistical, project and other information on an ad-hoc and regular basis and prepare reports for circulation within the team and the wider organisation.

Monitor progress of projects and set-up scheduling processes for project plans using MS Project, Excel & Access, Mind mapping software and Share Point

Responsibility for

Preparing project plans and undertaking project scheduling,

Assist the Mental Health Lead in the development and preparation of the Project Plan, plans key stages of the work-streams

Identifying information requirements and liaising with other departments to obtain information,

The collation and preparation of reports and other documentation to agreed specification,

Assisting the Mental health Alliance team with the facilitation of project activity sessions including large groups with complex or contentious issues,

Creating and setting up systems to collect & report data.

Identifies solutions where conflicting information is present and escalating these solutions to the Mental Health Lead for approval.

Creating and maintaining project spreadsheets, databases, presentations,

Performing routine and ad-hoc data analysis tasks,

Undertaking desktop research,

Training operational service admin staff in tools and techniques for data collection and analysis.

Undertake basic facilitation with services conducting sessions using foundation service improvement tools and techniques.

Administer complex project board/project team meetings: scheduling and coordinating the meetings and events, taking notes and minutes, preparing the meeting agendas and distributing papers and be responsible for progress chasing of actions to be taken.

Set up and manage the maintenance of project and departmental files, in both manual and electronic formats.

Manage workload effectively in accordance with the priorities of the department, seeking advice and guidance as appropriate.

Participate in the induction of any new staff to the department and provides cover in the team at times of absence.

Contribute to the development of new systems and ways of working, adapting to and supporting any changes that are implemented to departmental efficiency.

Actively participate in regular supervision sessions.

Participate in individual staff development reviews on an annual basis, undertaking all mandatory training as required and any additional training and personal development as agreed to keep up to date with the requirements of the job.

Trust Values:

The Trust is committed to ensuring the highest standards of care and treatment and expects that all staff treat people e.g, service users, their carers, relatives, friends, colleagues, visitors etc, with dignity and respectat all time. The post holder must all time act in accordance with the Trusts Values:

Honest, open, transparent

Respectful

Person first and in the centre

Improve and be outstanding

Relevant today, ready for tomorrow

Families and carers matter

Safeguarding:

Report any concerns regarding the safety or wellbeing of children, adults service users, members of their families etc, in accordance with Trust Policy.

Prevent and respond appropriately to abuse and understand own role in this by undertaking Safeguarding training.

Trust policies and commitments to be read in line with the relevant Trust Policy:

All staff employed by the Trust must comply with the Trusts policies and procedures, undertake appropriate training required for their role and commit to:

ensure they are aware of the Whistleblowing Policy and how they raise concerns;

maintain confidentiality, in line with the Trusts Confidentiality Policy and Code of Conduct;

understand their personal responsibilities with regards to data quality for any information which they create, use or process in accordance with the The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and Trust Data Protection policy;

comply with the provisions of The Trusts Health and Safety Policy and Protocol. Ensuring their own safety and that of colleagues, service users and visitors. Know the action to be taken in the event of a fire and must undertake fire training annually;

receive supervision in line with the Trusts Supervision Policy and an annual Appraisal in line with the Trusts Appraisal Policy, during which mandatory, role specific and personal development needs should be identified and agreed;

understand their responsibilities under the Trusts Equal Opportunities in Employment Policy and ensure that they adhere to the provisions of the policy;

recognise, respect and support the equality diversity of staff, colleagues, service users, carers and the public. Contribute to a working environment which promotes and responds positively to difference and diversity;

ensure they carry out their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18 years, as issued under Section 11 of The Children Act 2004, by being familiar with and adhering to Trust safeguarding policies and participatingin relevanttraining;

comply with their professional responsibilities to develop their practice and deliver care through a Clinical Governance framework (i.e. CPD, Audit, Supervision);

demonstrate, through practice and practical understanding, the importance of the continual development of individual, team and service wide quality improvement;

abide by relevant codes of professional practice, with the organisation taking action when codes of conduct are breached;

work flexibly to meet the needs of the service/organisation, whilst working within a culture of progressive employment practices and commitment to the Investors in People (IiP) Standards.

adhere to the Trusts smoke free policies, which prohibits smoking anywhere on Trust grounds;

being socially responsible by complying with measures that support the Trust in reducing or offsetting our environmental impact;

Identify and report risks, hazards, incidents, accidents and near misses promptly;

In addition to the Trusts own responsibilities under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance, for your safety, ALL staff (and contractors) are responsible for ensuring their work adheres to this Code in the delivery of safe patient care.

This job description is an outline of the main duties of the post. The postholder will be required to undertake other duties commensurate with the band as directed. The content of this post will be reviewed in consultation with the postholder when necessary and in line with the service developments.

For full details of the role please see the supporting documents attached.