Health Promotion Specialist - Youth Focused (North Essex)
- NHS
- Full Time
- Colchester
- 27919.00 a year
Job Description
Job summary
Essex Sexual Health Service (ESHS) is the sexual health provider in Essex, led by Provide Community and commissioned by Essex County Council.
The post holder will work as part of the outreach and education team, with a focus on the delivery of relationship, sex and health education. This includes the delivery of education directly to young people through one to one tailored support and small group work as well as training to upskill educational staff and other professionals supporting young people.
ESHS encourage applications from those with backgrounds in teaching, youth work, or working with people from seldom heard from communities.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will support in the design and delivery of effective health promotion (HP) and behavior change communication (BCC) interventions appropriate to the needs of young people and other groups at increased risk of poor sexual health outcomes.
The post holder will work closely with educational establishments to directly deliver relationship and sexual health education (RSHE), parent sessions, and educator training in both primary and secondary settings.
Delivery will also involve community engagement approaches that tackle health inequalities including HIV related stigma and discrimination. Delivering targeted interventions that increase knowledge and awareness of sexual health issues including sexual health testing, consent, confidentiality, LGBTQ+ inclusivity, whilst also increasing access to eC-Card and access to care treatment and the uptake of broader sexual health services across Essex.
Although this post will be predominately focusing on delivery in North Essex, the post holder will be expected to support the wider service with delivery across Essex therefore the post holder must have their own car and a full driver's license to be able to fulfil the requirements of this role.
About us
Provide is a Community Interest Company (social enterprise). We deliver a broad range of health and social care services in the community, and are committed to making sure that they are safe, responsive and of high quality. Provide is owned by its employees and has primarily social objectives. Any profits we make are reinvested into the local community or back into delivering services.
We work from a variety of community settings, such as community hospitals, community clinics, schools, nursing homes and primary care settings, as well as within people's homes to provide more than 40 services to children, families and adults across Essex, Dorset, East Anglia and the North of England.
A highly respected, award winning health and social care provider. We expect our staff to demonstrate and uphold our values at all times:
Vision: Transforming Lives
Values: Care, Innovation and Compassion
Mission: An ambitious, employee owned social enterprise, growing in size and influence. We transform lives by treating, caring and educating people.
Provide is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills, proud to have LGBT+, Ethnic Minority and Men's Networks.
We welcome applicants from underrepresented groups. If you have the skills and experience for the job, please apply regardless of your background.
Job responsibilities
1. To support educational establishments, parent and carers, and other professionals that work with young people in the delivery of RSHE.
2. To support in the coordination of the eC-Card scheme (free condoms and lube for people aged 16-24), ensuring that young people are aware of the scheme and how they are able to access it, and to support professionals in becoming eC-Card assessors and distributors.
3. Increasing professional and public awareness and knowledge of key sexual health topics by delivering professionals training days and community education sessions with a sex-positive approach.
4. To work directly with young people who may be at risk of harm or sexual ill health through THT 1-2-1 education and early intervention programme, supporting them to increase their knowledge and skills to make informed decisions.
5. To deliver targeted HP/BCC outreach interventions to relevant communities.
6. To achieve competencies to become an Assistant Practitioner (AP) enabling the post holder to offer HIV/Syphilis point of care testing (POCT), alongside other testing in a community setting adhering to local safeguarding procedures, information governance and other relevant policys.
7. To facilitate HP/BCC interventions virtually and face to face with target populations and partner agencies.
8. To develop, maintain and use systems to monitor and record HP/BCC interventions, ensuring high quality of data entry on clinical and client service databases and to accurately contribute data for reporting as requested for service monitoring reports.
9. To establish and maintain professional relationships with partner agencies, and to professionally represent ESHS with target populations and partner agencies both at meetings with key providers and during HP/BCC interventions adhering to THT values and policies.
10. Increase awareness of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), distributing self-testing kits for STIs where possible and pregnancy options & support.
11. To support in the development of networks with alternative education settings to give more vulnerable young people access to relationship, sex and health education (RSHE).
12. To manage resource availability and suitability to ensure HP/BCC interventions can be delivered throughout the team.
13. To work in partnership with the co-production and user involvement team to ensure young peoples views are heard, and to use this insight to support in shaping the service delivery.
14. To identify and undertake continuing professional development (CPD) in order to improve skills and maintain a good working knowledge of sexual health and HIV to meet the needs of target populations and partner agencies.
15. To assist with campaigns and events such as World AIDS Day, National HIV Testing Week, Sexual Health Week, LGBT+ History Month, Pride, Black History Month and other promotions and events.
16. To manage own workload, maintaining and updating calendars, timesheets, and annual leave records, and to notify line manager of any change in personal circumstances or personal information relevant to the role.
17. Working flexibly to meet the ever-developing needs of the service and its service users across a wide geographical location. This includes flexibility to work evenings and weekends as required.
Person Specification
Skills
Essential
- Clean driving licence & access to a car with the ability to travel, with required resources, across the county, working flexibly including working out of hours (evenings and weekends) when required
Qualifications
Desirable
- To hold a relevant teaching qualification, or accredited RSHE qualification
Experience
Essential
- Experience of delivering education / training packages to professionals and/or community groups. To have a good understanding of the challenges that young people may face growing up, and how to talk to young people in an age-appropriate way.
Skills
Essential
- Excellent interpersonal skills: ability to communicate at a range of different levels, build & manage relationships with a range of stakeholders Ability to manage and prioritise own workload and communicate to support/gain support from a wider team. Computer literacy in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint and database entry skills Good standards of accuracy, numeracy and literacy; ability to input data onto clinical and client databases
Knowledge
Essential
- An understanding and a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion
Experience
Desirable
- Experience working directly with young people on a 1:1 basis
Knowledge
Desirable
- Knowledgeable about HIV prevention, sexual health, contraception and other health needs of communities at risk of poor sexual health and HIV in the UK
Knowledge
Desirable
- A good level of knowledge about key national and local sexual health and HIV issues.
Experience
Desirable
- Experience of delivering and evaluating health promotion interventions to communities that experience health inequalities including young people
Knowledge
Desirable
- To have a good understanding of the local area
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.
Certificate of Sponsorship
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