Bereavement Services Counsellor

Job description

Job responsibilities

Overall Purpose of the Role

To work within the Bereavement Service, providing counselling and support to bereaved families, friends, and children along with supporting volunteers, and contributing to the development of the service.

1. Clinical

1.1 Maintain a counselling caseload, and in relation to this caseload, undertake recording and administrative tasks as required, and attend, and use appropriately, monthly individual counselling supervision.

1.2 Undertake assessments for counselling and be involved with allocating clients to volunteer counsellors.

1.3 Make telephone contact with bereaved relatives who may need early support.

1.4 Establish and, where necessary, maintain a telephone contact caseload, negotiating further bereavement support from the Service, where appropriate.

1.5 Contribute to the delivery of other support elements of the Bereavement Services, as required, for example, patient electronic record data input and maintenance.

1.6 Ensure all counselling practice complies with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Framework for Ethical Practice, or equivalent.

1.7 Contribute to the development and delivery of structured group sessions on bereavement for patients families, carers, friends and children.

2. Volunteer Support

2.1 Contribute to the support of bereavement volunteers by facilitating volunteer supervision meetings.

2.2 Contribute to the initial training of new bereavement volunteers, and to the ongoing training of existing volunteers.

2.3 Contribute to other methods of volunteer support via the telephone, e-mail etc

3. Service development

3.1 Contribute to the planning, implementing and development of new and existing bereavement projects and support services, working to maintain and improve the standard of bereavement support offered within the hospice.

4. Administrative

4.1 Undertake regular routine tasks in the Bereavement Service, in the absence of the Bereavement Services Co-ordinator e.g. liaising / co-ordinating volunteer services, providing information for the bereaved, allocation of cases etc.

4.2 Undertake required record keeping in relation to own caseload including the use of the computerised Infoflex system.

4.3 Participate as a department representative at hospice meetings.

4.4 Be involved in the evaluation of the bereavement service

4.5 Undertake general administrative duties relating to the bereavement service, as required.

5. Education

5.1 Provide educational sessions on bereavement for colleagues and peers

6. General

Our Values

The Board and Executive agreed St Lukes organisational values in 2015 ensuring they reflect our culture and what we want to achieve together. We have four simple values which set out how we work together to achieve success at St Lukes.

No matter what area of St Lukes we work in and no matter who we work for, we are committed to the following ways of working:

Compassionate

Dignified

Inspired

Pioneering

Values are really important throughout every team here at St Lukes, we are all responsible for ensuring our values are displayed and to ensure they form a core part of everything that we do at St Lukes. They influence our behaviours, our language, the way we interact with each other as employees and also as human beings. In bringing our values to life, we have created a booklet entitled The Little Pink Book which supports all of us at St Lukes in helping us to put our values into action through our behaviours every day.

We expect staff to familiarise themselves with our values and the expected behaviours, and to ask if they feel these conflict in any way with their roles. These values and behaviours will be used as a reference in our day-to-day working lives, and how we respect St Lukes and those associated with it.

This Job Description is not exhaustive. It will be subject to periodic review and may be amended following discussion between the post-holder and employer.

Person Specification

QUALIFICATIONS/TRAINING

Essential

• Diploma in counselling or equivalent
• BACP accreditation or equivalent, or working towards

Qualifications

Essential

• Diploma in counselling or equivalent
• BACP accreditation or equivalent, or working towards

Experience

Essential

• Post-qualification counselling experience
• Experience of working within a multi-professional team

Desirable

• Working with the bereaved adults and children

SKILLS/ABILITIES

Essential

• Ability to address individual needs, using a person-centred or similar model
• Ability to use counselling skills on the telephone as a first contact with those who may need extra support
• Experience of delivering training
• Good verbal and written skills
• Able to use initiative and work autonomously when required
• Basic IT skills

Desirable

• Ability to work with and support volunteers in their role as bereavement supporters

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).

Employer details

Employer name

St Luke’s Hospice

Address

Little Common Lane

Sheffield

S11 9NE

Employer's website

https://www.stlukeshospice.org.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)