Peer Support Worker (Lived Experience) Complex Emotional Needs

Job summary

This role is offered on a permanent basis. The hours are part-time, 22.5 hours per week.

This is an exciting opportunity for excellent people who are passionate about creating positive changes for people described as experiencing 'Complex Emotional Needs'.

As a peer support worker you will meet with people experiencing distress and provide hope, optimism and share ideas that support coping from that unique perspective of having lived through similar issues.

We are a close and supportive multi-disciplinary team and we're proud of our work, making small sustainable changes in service responses across Gloucestershire.

An exciting development within the CEN service is the FERN - Frequent Engagement Response Network which is a small sub-team within CEN. This will focus on improving responses to people presenting regularly to 999 services. The FERN team includes a serving police officer, an assistant psychologist and peer support workers who work together to create person centred, psychologically informed plans that direct responders towards a trauma informed approach in situations of high risk. There will also be opportunities to support and 'upskill' service partners who may be emotionally impacted by some of the situations they are responding to.

Essential to this post is having experienced living with your own Complex Emotional Needs and having used this experience to support others within their recovery.

Main duties of the job

The role of the peer support worker is:

• To support the multi-disciplinary team in promoting recovery orientated environment by identifying recovery focussed activities and fostering a culture of hope.
• Deliver an approach that is underpinned by the principals of trauma informed care.
• To work alongside a number of service users on a one to one or group basis.
• Contribute to the development of training to raise awarensses and reduce stigma.
• Contribute to developing and supporting a small team of volunteer peer mentors.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

About us

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Details

Date posted

02 March 2026

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 3

Salary

£24,937 to £26,598 a year per annum, pro rata

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

327-26-153

Job locations

Eastgate House

121-131 Eastgate

Gloucester

GL1 3PX

For further information and to apply, click on the APPLY BUTTON at the bottom of this advert to view the supporting documents or apply online