Peer Mentor, Perinatal Mental Health Service

Job summary

About the Perinatal Mental Health Service: The service is a specialist community team that covers the whole of the Gwent area. The multi-disciplinary team provides care and treatment to women who are pregnant or postnatal and are at risk of, or are affected by mental illness. The teamoffer evidence based treatments in a way that is best suited to the woman, her baby and family. Click here to see more about the Perinatal Mental Health Service.

About the Peer Mentor role: The successful candidate will support and walk alongside those accessing the service through the appropriate sharing of knowledge from own lived experience by inspiring hope and belief that a positive and meaningful life is possible in others. The post holder will provide a wide range of structured activities to include social leisure activities, vocational and educational programs to promote and support individual well-being. This will involve working with patients in both group and individual settings and working with families and carers. The post holder will model personal responsibility, self-awareness, self-belief, self-advocacy, and hopefulness when working to inspire and instil confidence. Throughout the working day, the post holder will ensure the comfort and consideration of the patient/client and their family or friends and to relate with kindness and sympathy to all concerned.

This post is fixed term for post until 20 August 2024

Main duties of the job

As a Perinatal Peer Mentor, you will be an 'expert by experience', working within a multi-disciplinary team and using a person-centred, strengths-based, recovery & wellness approach whilst working directly with individuals accessing the service.

To be a Peer Mentor in this service, there is a requirement that you have a lived experience of mental health illness in the perinatal period and would have had experience and input from a Mental Health Service. The applicant must be empathetic and be able to show an understanding of the issues faced by individuals under the Perinatal Mental Health Service to deliver peer mentoring support to these individuals and their Family/Carers.

The post holder is encouraged to raise awareness of a strengths-based approach and associated language with staff by modelling positive strengths based, non-discriminatory, non-jargon, and non-medicalised language in all areas of work.

The Perinatal Mental Health Team & Peer Mentor Development team members will provide ongoing support the successful candidate in their work with service users. The role will include some administrative duties, including recording on electronic patient records. You may be working with groups, individuals, and agencies external to the NHS.

Due to being a community service, the ability to travel between sites is essential to this post.

The ability to speak Welsh is desirable for this post; Welsh and/or English speakers are equally welcome to apply.

About us

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board is a multi-award winning NHS organisation with a passion for caring. The Health Board provides an exceptional workplace where you can feel trusted and valued. Whatever your specialty or stage in your career, we have opportunities for everyone to start, grow and build your career. The health board provides integrated acute, primary and community care serving a population of 650,000 and employing over 16,000 staff.

We offer a fantastic benefits package and extensive training and development opportunities with paid mandatory training, excellent in-house programmes, opportunities to complete recognised qualifications and professional career pathways including a range of management development programmes. We offer flexible working and promote a healthy work life balance, provide occupational health support and an ambitious plan for a Wellbeing Centre of Excellence to support you at work.

Our Clinical Futures strategy continues to enhance and promote care closer to home as well as high quality hospital care when needed. This includes the Grange University Hospital which provides specialist and critical care and is the newest addition to the clinical futures strategy opening in November 2020. Join us on our journey to pioneer new ways of working and deliver a world-class healthcare service fit for the future.