As a valued Lived Experience Peer Support Worker - CYP Autism, you will play a crucial role in providing peer support and practical assistance to service users, helping them regain control over their lives.

Drawing upon your own lived experiences, you will offer relational support to Autistic children and young people, serving as a role model, guiding them to community resources, and fostering connections.

Through empathy and a deep understanding of their challenges, you will inspire hope and assist them in achieving their goals.

In this role, you will be uniquely positioned to facilitate and support information sharing that promotes choice, self-determination, and integration into local communities.

We are committed to delivering personalised and family-centred care, ensuring individuals receive timely support within their community.

Our dedicated team, including Lived Experience Workers, is instrumental in realising this vision by working closely with children, young adults, and their families to empower them and facilitate access to essential services.

You will feel valued as a Lived Experience Peer Support Worker - CYP Autism within HCRG Care Group, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including: 

• Starting Salary of £23,100 with Group Pension 
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on every day purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise
• An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year 
• The pride of working for an organisation committed to the highest clinical and quality standards: with a majority of our rated services holding “good” or “outstanding” ratings from the Care Quality Commission

• To provide peer support to Autistic service users (children & young people) supporting them in relation to their careplan and goals on a 1-1 or group basis focusing on building relationships and opportunities to learn together.
• To bring empathy and understanding into all interactions with  by sharing lived experience and hopefulness.
• To maintain equality with, and work alongside others facing similar experiences and challenges in their health and wellbeing with the central focus being on building trusting relationships rather than intervention.
• To positively support service users by making links and accessing community resources and supporting them with social inclusion.
• To promote understanding of the principles and practice of the Autism Outreach Lived Experience role (relationships and support).
• To interact with and work alongside a team of professionals and service user families and carers in the delivery of peer based approaches (Informal support for other people with the same life experiences).
• To work closely with the Senior Lived Experience Lead to develop the community offer ensuring all services developed are co-produced collaboratively with CYP and their families to build positive relationships and ensure they are responsive to service user need.
• To keep and maintain accurate, quality and up to date records (using the appropriate computer systems i.e. SystmOne).
• Work flexibly, being prepared to perform other duties commensurate with the role which may include new areas of operation following consultation.
• Work alongside and ensure active service user and carer participation in all aspects of work including design, implementation and monitoring of activities.

Please see attached job description for a full list of responsibilities

Essential

• Own personal lived experience of Autism  / neurodiversity and willingness to positively share own life experiences.
• Excellent communication skills with children, young people and adults.
• Able to tell your story in a meaningful way
• Ability to demonstrate empathy, compassion and patience
• Planning, organisational and time management skills.
• An ability to act calmly and to resond professionally to distres, disturbace and unpredictability.
• Driving licence and access to vehicle for work purposes.

Desirable

• Level 3 in health & social care or equivalent experience.
• Experience of working or volunteering with neurodivergent individuals and/or people with mental health problems.
• An understanding of child development.
• Demonstable understanding of the impact of trauma on child development and behaviour.
• Experience of working in a community capacity role/peer support role.
• Demonstrable record of good working practice with children and young people, having a positive impact on their lives and meeting their needs .
• Experience in actively supporting individuals to identify and work towards achieving personal goals in a related social care or health setting (paid or unpaid)

Please see attached Job Description for full Personal Specification.

We change lives by transforming health and care.

Established in 2006, we are one of the UK's leading independent providers of community health and care services, working with health and care commissioners and communities to transform services with a focus on experience, efficiency and improved outcomes. We deliver and transform adult and children community health services, primary care services including urgent care, sexual health, dermatology and MSK services as well as adult social care and wellbeing services. Across England, we support communities of many millions and directly help more than half a million people each year - guided by our simple values: we care, we think, we do.

We're committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people who want to join our team. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company, so we work to provide facilities, work environment adjustments and technical solutions to be as inclusive of everyone.

While it doesn’t happen often, sometimes a role is very popular, and we’ll need to close it earlier than the date we’ve shown here. If you’re keen to join our team, we’d love to hear from you so please apply as soon as you can.

As you’d expect, safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults that we work with is of the utmost importance so we have policies and procedures in place to promote safeguarding and safer working practices and everyone who joins the team is subject to a safer recruitment process, including the disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.

Finally, we need to let you know that the company you’ll work for is part of HCRG Care Group Holdings Limited and by applying for this job we’ll need to process and hold information about you. If you would like to know a little more about how we use your information, please see our website's privacy policy.