Job Description

An exciting opportunity has arisen to taken on a role as a Community Practitioner in the Lewisham Care Home Intervention Team (CHIT). This is an ideal post for someone passionate about supporting care home staff to improve the quality of person-centred care they provide for people with behaviours that challenge, and would suit a current band 6 wanting to expand their experience, or an enthusiastic and skilled band 5 who is keen to develop into a community post.



You will be someone who is passionate about working with older adults living with dementia or other mental health needs and who wants to make a difference in the lives of people that live and work in care homes. We encourage applications from clinicians who value creativity, innovative thinking, originality and are looking for a role that fits with these values. You will also have excellent collaboration, negotiation and communication skills, as the staff and the residents in the care homes you will work with face many challenges that have increased significantly in recent years. You will need to be motivated and enthusiastic about providing high quality person-centred care and be someone who is able to inspire others to do so too.



The post-holder will be a registered nurse, occupational therapist or social worker. They will be expected to carry out assessments and formulate care plans for care home residents who experience behaviours that challenge in the context of dementia or mental illness. They will manage a defined caseload which includes developing and evaluating care plans in collaboration with care home staff, care home residents and their relatives. They will work with the team to support care home staff skill development.



We are a multi-disciplinary team who work with people aged 65 and above living in residential or nursing care homes in Lewisham. We specialise in understanding the behaviours that challenge care staff in the context of a person's mental health needs.



We also seek to continually improve our service and the lives of residents by using QI methodology in partnership with care homes. We are dedicated to supporting professional development, and we welcome contributions towards team development.



1) To promote a holistic, person-centred assessment and formulation framework to local authority and private providers of older people's care, and to support care home staff to implement a plan of care.



2) To manage a clinical caseload of service users with behaviours that challenge, who may also experience co-morbidity.



3)To develop and facilitate education/training opportunities to enhance the knowledge of care home staff, and to develop skills to promote the wellbeing of service users with dementia and mental illness.



4) To work in a consultation role with service users, carers and staff to provide consultation and supervision to stakeholders and associated professionals about behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia or behaviours that challenge in the context of mental illness issues.



5) To act as a voice for those we work with to ensure that service user and carer views are incorporated into the development of the service.



6) Contribute to clinical audit and outcome measures with the support of the MDT. Attend meetings, forums and working groups as appropriate.



7) To ensure anti-discriminatory practice is upheld and promoted. To ensure relevant legislation and practice is upheld. Continually seek to improve practice via reflective learning, making effective use of supervision, training and learning opportunities.