Personal Assistant (Support Worker)

Job Description

Job Details

Job Title	Personal Assistant	Line Manager	Lead Practitioner
		Salary	£18,252 FTE
Department	Supported Living	Directorate	Director of H&W
Location	Thistle Foundation, 13 Queens Walk, Edinburgh, EH16 4EA
Hours	Full-time & part-time	FTE	39 hours

Job Purpose

To assist those we support to lead full, active and socially connected lives and support people to reach their personal outcomes.

Our teams take responsibility for making their own decisions about how they organise their work and how they decide on how they’re going to get their work done. This role therefore requires good interpersonal skills and an ability to set and meet targets, ability to ask for and receive accurate feedback and ensure that cover is managed by the team at all times (e.g. holidays, sickness, training).

Main Responsibilities

1	Develop an understanding of person centred working and work from its value base at all times.
2	Contribute to ongoing use of ‘My Life, My support plan’ by keeping details updated and relevant. Contribute to the yearly review of ‘My Life, My Support Plan’.
3	Work flexibly and responsively to support the individual to meet their personal outcomes.
4	Provide person centred personal support and assistance for the person according to their ‘My Life My Support Plan’
5	Work in partnership with individuals supporting them to be full citizens in their community.
6	Contribute to setting individual (personal) and team targets in relation to a person’s outcomes. Meet these targets
7	Support the person to develop and sustain positive relationships with all those people (family/friends/professionals) that are important to them.
8	Contribute to efficient team working by taking a pro-active part in team meetings and discussions, including chairing and minute taking and taking on tasks as agreed (e.g. working out the team rota, Carista, family connector, on-call, setting and reviewing priorities, identifying and improving systems and processes, working on feedback from families and those we support.)
9	Take a pro-active part in the team by supporting colleagues, communicating well and helping to deal with issues as they arise.
10	Accountable to the person you support and those who advocate on their behalf
11	Be creative in involving the supported person in all decision-making related to them.
12	Work to Thistle’s Values into Action

Thistle Approach: competencies to support wellbeing

The post holder is required to work to Thistle’s core competencies in ways which are relevant to their role.

Core Competencies	Description
Understanding self	We develop a good understanding of ourselves and the impact we have on other people. Being genuine, respectful and listening with empathy to other people’s perspectives lies at the heart of all our interactions. We believe this practice is nurtured by the ability to continually reflect on ourselves and the impact we have on others.
Building person centred relationships	We develop supportive, collaborative and enabling relationships. We also believe that people are the experts in their lives and that they are doing their best and that by working alongside people we are more likely to succeed. We reflect on the extent to which we create trust in all our relationships and how well we work within teams.
Making a difference using person centred approaches	We believe that using person centred approaches can be critical to whether people make the changes they want in their lives or not. We do this by focusing on what matters to each person and what they want specifically to achieve including taking life enhancing risks. We always encourage feedback in order to learn and improve on what we do.
Focusing on strengths, resilience and contribution	We believe that people have strengths, skills, knowledge and resilience and the ability to contribute to their own and others’ lives. We need to be flexible and innovative to enable people to share these attributes and make the most of all contributions in order to find creative solutions. We celebrate the successes this brings and build our resilience by learning from setbacks.
Promoting wellbeing, citizenship and community	We believe that everyone is a citizen with rights, responsibilities and a contribution to make to their community. This is only meaningfully possible when you have genuine wellbeing and are fully included in your community. This belief drives the work we do at Thistle so we know we must try to influence the unequal and discriminatory aspects of our society in order to change how things currently are. This requires us to share the ‘Thistle Approach’ more widely and in turn, learn from the world around us. To do this well we must continually reflect on what this means for us as individuals and as an organisation.

Key Contacts and Relationships

Person we support
Team members
Service Manager
Service Leaders
Team Facilitators
Other Thistle Staff and departments
External bodies/agencies including health services, social work
Family members of individual/s
Advocates

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Ideally have Higher Education Certificate in Person Centred Approaches or SVQ level 2 in Care or equivalent or be committed to working towards this to ensure registration to SSSC standard
Driving licence desirable
IT literate
Experience of supporting people with disabilities
Experience and understanding of working in a person centred way
Able to work autonomously
Good interpersonal skills
Ability to maintain clear & accurate records
Flexibility to respond to a changing environment including evening and weekend working as required
Ability to reflect on practice

Dimensions

The post holder’s work normally takes place at the Supported Persons home offices
This is a permanent position

Job context and other related information

The post holder is expected to commit to continually developing a personal understanding of the vision, mission and manifesto and strategic aspirations of the Thistle Foundation.

You will support a very straightforward and highly educated man who works as an engineer and needs assistance with his computer and around complex care tasks due to spinal cord injury. Passionate about travelling – he spent several years in the South East of Asia doing infrastructure work. It takes time to build a trustworthy relationship with new members of staff, especially around his complex care package.

This is a great opportunity if you would like to become skilled at complex care duties and challenge yourself to change someone else’s life.

Complex care, personal care, moving and assisting:

You will be responsible for the following duties:

Moving and assisting (using tracking hoist)
Personal care (shower routine)
Medication administration (PEG)
Tracheostomy suctioning
Nebulisation

(Experience desirable, but not essential as full training will be provided).

Other duties:

Assistance with computer
Social support

Details of the days and times that support is provided.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday:
Early shift: 8am-3pm
Back shift: 3pm-10pm
Second person: 8am-11am/7pm-8pm

Personal Assistant’s attributes:

You will support a kind person who will engage in interesting conversations. At times, he will challenge you in order to achieve the best regarding complex care tasks. You will have to be resilient, willing to learn and able to establish a solid relationship, keeping a positive attitude. You will also have to show flexibility with the working schedule.

If you would like an informal chat about this vacancy please contact Federico.Marchiolli@thistle.org.uk

Apply now