Children and Young Persons Advocate

We are looking for an experienced and Passionate Children & Young Adult Advocate to work as part of our Essex Advocacy service.

Advocacy is having someone by your side, and on your side, when you want to be more involved in decisions about your care, treatment and living arrangements. An advocate can talk through the situation you’re currently in and the options open to you. They can help you decide what you want and then communicate it to people. This is particularly useful if it’s difficult to understand things or to speak up and be heard

How will you make a difference:

• I provide a high quality, responsive and effective advocacy service in accordance with the service specification, contract, and legislative timescales
• I work with children and young people requiring advocacy support within care, education and treatment settings and systems. This could be through one off interventions, regular visiting, or ongoing casework
• I ensure that children and young people understand and can exercise their rights; supporting them to access information, to understand better what is happening, what is planned, and the options available to them to feel empowered and make better informed decisions and be more involved in decisions that affect their life
• I work to agreed outcomes, as appropriate with the child or young person promoting an understanding of options and outcomes.
• I produce written or verbal reports with the purpose of ensuring the view of the child or young person are fully represented and given due consideration at relevant meetings and forums.
• I report accurately on Safeguarding and individual at-risk issues in accordance with company and local procedure.
• I take responsibility for maintaining up to date, factually accurate records in line with confidentiality protocols, Information Governance standards, General Data Protection principles and Rethink and Coram Voice’s recording guidelines.

We do reserve the right to close this advertisement early if we receive a high volume of suitable applications.

Please see further details on our website

You can also follow us on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram and LinkedIn to find out more about the work we do!

Don’t meet all requirements?

If the role sounds exciting to you but your experience, skills or qualifications don’t exactly match every single requirement, we still encourage you to apply, you may be just the right person for our position!

Caring for our people.

We offer a wide range of support. Some of our benefits include:

• PULSE – our recognition, rewards, wellbeing, and benefits platform. Providing access to thousands of discounts and benefits including cashback; reloadable cards; savings etc. As well as being able to thank colleagues and nominate them for awards.

• Wellbeing support: our Wellbeing hub gives physical, emotional, and mental health support. We also have a BUPA Employee Assistance Programme with access to appointments.

• Taking time for you: we work flexibly –you get to choose where you work, managing your own diary. We have generous annual leave, starting at 25 rising to 30 days, plus bank holidays, as well as your birthday off. We also offer the opportunity to buy and sell annual leave.

• Planning for the future: We have a contributory pension scheme.

• Structured Corporate Induction: Onboarding you into the Charity supporting your wellbeing along the way.

• £300 when you introduce a Friend: receive up to £300 when you introduce a friend or family member.

Who are we?

We’re Rethink Mental Illness, a leading charity provider of mental health services in England. We support thousands of people through our groups, services, policy, campaigns and advice and information. Our work supports us in delivering on our mission: “A better life for everyone severely affected by mental illness.”

It is an exciting time to join our growing charity. We are on a transformation journey, one that supports the delivery of the organisation strategy – delivering Communities that Care. Supporting employees, managers and leaders through this change is a key priority for the People function. Just like its key that we attract diverse people to come and work for us.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

Diversity is important to us and we appreciate difference through difference, inclusiveness and belonging. It gives us a deeper understanding of the world, our society and the diverse communities we’re working with. By including everyone, we are able to draw on the unique experiences and expertise of our people to help shape and enrich our workplace and improve our services. One way we are doing is through our valued staff networks which play a critical and highly valued role in keeping us focused on creating a diverse, inclusive and engaged employer. We recognise and support staff networks for our Black, Asian and minority ethnic and our LGBTQIA+ colleagues. We are also proud to have been awarded Disability Confident Employer status and are a signatory to the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter.

Becoming a truly anti-racist organisation

We have an ambition of become a truly anti-racist employer, campaigning organisation and service provider - and in our efforts to influence policy and wider societal factors impacting on mental health set out in our anti-racist statement . We have designed a multi-year anti-racist programme of work contained in our Race Equality Action Plan which demonstrate our intention to hold ourselves accountable and be judged on our progress on becoming a truly anti-racist organisation.

We therefore actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including applicants with lived experience, those who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (or questioning), Intersex and (asexual) (LGBTQIA+), people with a disability, and people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

If you have any questions about the position, please contact -